In this epistolary novel, the protagonist, Ramatoulaye Fall, spends her mandatory quarantine after the death of her husband and writes this long letter to her best friend Aïssatou. In this letter, she not only recounts her widowhood but also her life as a woman, wife, and mother. In so few pages, Mariama Bâ does not simply describes the life of a particular woman, but more widely the condition of women in general. She underlines the importance of access to education, as well as the generational differences between the women of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The novel is beautifully written and does a great job of advocating for women's rights while providing a variety of points of view, also looking into the future, exemplified in the main character’s daughters. 

Finally, what I find primordial with African literature, and with literature in general that is not part of the mainstream Western canon, is to not confine these works in a box: Mariama Bâ talks not only about the Senegalese woman (as she does of course) but also about women everywhere. Generally speaking, authors who are outside the Western canon and/or part of marginalized communities (ex. LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, etc), put work out there in the world that usually risks being analyzed uniquely through that lens.