The January book quiz was as follows:

Question: This book is an autobiography written in the form of a letter. It was first written in French and later translated to English. It is set in one of the West African countries and tells the story of two friends and their husbands. Name the book and its author.

[b]Answer: The book is titled "So long A Letter" and the author is Mariama Ba.


[/b]So long a letter is a sequence of reminiscences narrated by Senegalese school teacher who was a widow. The letter was addressed to her old friend, Aissatou. She recounted her emotional struggle for survival after her husband suddenly decided to take a second wife. Though permitted in Islam, she viewed his action as a form of betrayal. The book has been described as "a perceptive testimony to the plight of those articulate women who live in a social milieu dominated by attitudes and values that deny them of their proper place".

It was translated from French to the English language by Modupe Bode-Thomas. Mariama Ba died tragically in 1981 after a long illness.