Mariama Bâ, Grande Dame of African Literature

The latest addition to Emma Garman’s excellent column, “Feminize Your Canon,” in the Paris Review features Mariama Bâ, one of the first black African women to achieve international renown as an author. Upon publishing So Long a Letter, “Bâ, who had been a women’s rights activist since the sixties, was suddenly hailed as the pioneering feminist voice of a continent.”