Mariama Bâ (April 17, 1929 – August 17, 1981) was a Senegalese author and feminist, whose two French-language novels were both translated into more than a dozen languages.

Her frustration with the fate of African women is expressed in her first novel, Une si longue lettre (1979; translated into English as So Long a Letter).

In this semi-autobiographical epistolary work, Bâ depicts the sorrow and resignation of a woman who must share the mourning for her late husband with his second, younger wife.

[4] In a teacher training college based in Rufisque (a suburb in Dakar), she won the first prize in the entrance examination and entered the École Normale.

The school's principal began to prepare her for the 1943 entrance examination to a teaching career after he noticed Bâ's intellect and capacity.

[citation needed] Bâ was married three times and had nine children; her third and longest marriage was to a Senegalese member of Parliament, Obèye Diop, but they divorced.

[6] Bâ died in 1981 after a protracted illness, before the publication of her second novel, Un Chant écarlate (Scarlet Song), which is a love story between two star-crossed lovers from different ethnic backgrounds fighting the tyranny of tradition.

[citation needed] Bâ wrote two books: So Long a Letter (1979) and Scarlet Song (1981), in addition to La fonction politique des littératures Africaines écrites (The Political Function of African Written Literature), an article published in 1981.

In this book, the author recognized the immense contributions African women have made and continue to make in the building of their societies.

The book is written in the form of a letter, or a diary, from a widow, Ramatoulaye, to her childhood girlfriend, Aissatou, who lives in the United States.

Nafissatou Niang Diallo (1941–1982), who started her works in the 1970s, was a mirror for Mariama Bâ, whose leading role was a strong-minded character.

This discriminatory power is what is in the novel a form of male domination coming from society's construction of a patriarchal ideology.