Articulating Visibility in the African-Muslim Contexts of Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter and Leila Abouzeid’s Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman’s Journey Toward Independence

Abstract

Both So Long a Letter and Year of the Elephant were written in the aftermath of the struggle for liberation from colonial rule, articulating the visibility of women in traditional, patriarchal African-Muslim contexts at a time when personal and socio-political exposés by women writers were quite uncommon. These first generation novellas, situated within the former French colonies Senegal and Morocco respectively, are articulations of agency which move both within and across borders and boundaries. Due to their personal circumstances, both narrators find themselves in a personal space where they are insiders as well as outsiders within their African-Muslim nations. Since they state that their commitment to their Islamic faith encompasses a critical interrogation of traditional and religious practices within their own societies, I will draw on the term dihliz, an Arabo-Persian term, (Moosa 2006:7) which suggests a liminal, threshold space. During their periods of iddat, their seclusion enables the narrators to explore the prosaic and the sacred, the personal and the political from this space of dihliz, and also promotes a sensitive perception of their historical and personal contexts from multiple perspectives, thereby re-positioning and re-constructing their identities as Muslim women.

Opsomming

So Long a Letter en Year of the Elephant is albei geskryf in die nadraai van die stryd om koloniale oorheersing omver te werp en gee uiting aan die sigbaarheid van vroue in tradisionele, patriargale Afrika-Moslem-kontekste in tye toe persoonlike en sosiaal-politieke onthullings deur vroueskrywers heel ongewoon was. Hierdie eerste generasienovelles speel onderskeidelik af in Senegal en Marokko, voormalige Franse kolonies, en gee uitdrukking aan mag (agency) wat binne grense én oor grense en skeidings heen uitgeoefen word. Weens hulle persoonlike omstandighede bevind albei vertellers hulself in ’n persoonlike ruimte waar hulle sowel lede van die binnekring as buitestaanders in hulle Afrika-Moslem-nasies is. Hulle verklaar dat hulle toewyding aan die Islamitiese geloof ’n kritiese bevraagtekening van tradisionele en godsdienspraktyke in hulle eie gemeenskappe insluit, dus maak ek gebruik van die term dihliz, ’n Arabies-Persiese term (Moosa 2006: 7) wat ’n liminale of drempelruimte aandui. Tydens hulle iddat-periodes stel die vertellers se afsondering hulle in staat om die prosaïese en die heilige, die persoonlike en die politieke vanuit die dihliz-ruimte te ondersoek. Hulle afsondering maak dit vir hulle moontlik om hulle historiese en persoonlike kontekste sensitief vanuit meervoudige perspektiewe waar te neem en hulle identiteite as Moslemvroue sodoende te herposisioneer en te rekonstrueer.