Customer Reviews

Scarlet Song (Longman African Classics)

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Scarlet song is the story of two lovers, Ousmane Gueye and Mireille De La Valle who are in an interracial relationships. Both set of lovers endured their parental opposition to the relationship with Mireille receiving the raw end of the deal ... her father disowns her after her secret wedding. Following their wedding, she relocates with her husband to his country, Senegal. Unfortunately, their story book romance is unable to withstand some of the traditions and expectations of her inlaws. Her mother inlaw mocks her and calls her a jinee. Ousmane, a weak willed fellow is gradually drawn into his culture, abandons his wife for his once secret crush, Ouleymatou, who had spurned his advances during their teenage years because of Ousmane's devotion to his mom. The two embark on an illicit romance with the approval of their family and a union is produced from the relationship. When Mireille gets wind of the illicit relationship, now legalized by the society, she suffers a breakdown and at the end of the novel, she is about to be deported back to France by the French Embassy.

Scarlet Song is another classic from Mariama Ba. The novel is deep and intense, the literary qualities is superb, she writes with panache and at the end of the novel, the reader comes out with the conclusion that the narrator of this novel was adept at weaving the story consistently. She probably would have been a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature if she was still alive.

Highly Recommended.

In the first two years of the 1980s Senegalese author Mariama Bā wrote two exquisite novels and died. A good career move perhaps but a genuine loss to world literature for she was the seminal African voice crusading against sexual injustice. Since then she has been a major influence on African literature. Scarlet Song is a short but powerful tale of a collision between two incompatible cultures where the woman is the inevitable loser.
Ousmane, `the black son of a disabled ex-serviceman and an illiterate housewife' meets Mireille, daughter of a French diplomat at a French school in Dakar and they fall in love. Incensed at his daughter's infatuation with a poor black boy Mireille's haughty father banishes her back to France where she rebels against her family and joins the 1968 students' revolt. During their years at university Ousmane and Mireille write to each other and their love passes the test of time. His motives unsuspected by his parents, Ousmane travels to Europe where he marries Mireille in secret. His new wife converts to Islam and returns to Senegal with her husband where she is grudgingly greeted by his family. However, Ousmane finds himself drawn more and more back into to his culture and the women of his past. Surrounded by people plotting against her the result is painful and humiliating isolation for his wife.
One of the triumphs of Scarlet Song is in the sympathetic depiction of the suffering inflicted on the two families as a result of the liaison, even though their agony is based on unsavoury historical and personal prejudices. Ousmane and Mireille also suffer inner conflict at the prospect of betraying their respective cultures though finally it is she who acquiesces. In her two magnificent novels (So Long a Letter is the other) Mariama Bā rallies against injustice and the subservient role enforced on women in traditional societies but the real injustice is the unfamiliarity of her works in the English-speaking world.

Mariama Ba brings to life the true realities and complexities of interraccial marriage. She writes poignantly and beautifully. She is a master narrator, and will amaze you with her fabulous storytelling. I have read "Scarlet Song" numerous times, and wrote my senoir thesis about this book.

This is a book club in Boston, MASS-USA of women of color and we focus on books written by "African Female Writers"...... thats how we found ourselves reading Scarlet Song by Mariama Ba... here below is a little synopsis of the book club meeting we had in November 2007.

Since some folks had problems getting the book, we offered a what was intended to be a short synopis - you know ten minutes - well when you get women of color from the diaspora to recap what they read, you will hear editorials, dramatizations and disagreements, that a ten minute synopsis turned into an hour of laughter and a market style conversation.
We all learnt about how our own backgrounds and perception of societal roles influence how we experience the world e.g. some thought that Mirielle did a good job with the meal she was sending her father in-law in an effort to be dutiful daughter in-law..... while quite a number of us did not understand what was going on in her head - like how dare she sends "a piece of chicken" for only her father in-law.... when in actuality he lived in a compound hence he had to send for all. In an African setting your generosity is in quantity not frugality. Yaye Khady was well within her rights to snub at her because for the first time it seemed as if there was a clush of cultures and no clear expectations were outlined. Being that she was the one that was in the foreign land she had to learn the ways of that land and adopt to them rather than the land adopting to her foreign ways. At this point you can clearly see that inspite of Mirielle prior stay in Senegal as a Diplomat's daughter, she experience Senegal through different lenses. Her interaction with the locals left alot to be desired because when she returned she appeared to be clueless about the expectations of the land.

Feminist notions aside ---- All of us were in awe of Ouleymattou's strategy in hooking Ousmane. Girlfriend can be an army general - she has perfect execution and got what she wanted..... and we are all in search of that incense / perfume... read the book to understand the new-found fascination. Our fascination with her was in context of trying to understand what it takes a woman to chase a married man, and a married man to court another woman in instances where polygamy is allowed. So we could not necessary judge her because it was ok in her setting to be a second wife.... as courtship goes its a GAME!

We all agreed that it was just a tragic story - the whole relationship was just naive and it had tragic consequences - I think everybody in the room drew from personal experiences, lessons related to interracial, inter-class, inter-caste --- whatever the social lines are. what needs to be acknowledged in order for things to even remotely work. I was personally enriched by the immerse diversity of opinions that were in the room, how thoughtful and insightful everybody was.

Please dont take this as a book review but just a report back on the discussion we had. As we read more books, I will take the time to do write-ups on the website because I realise that African Female writers are not the MOST explored writers hence any write-up on them would help somebody.

KEEP ON READING

read this for junior yr IB english. amazing bk. i liked it so much a friend and i made t-shirts quoting it. amazing story of a white woman marrying a black man in africa and the pressures of culture and tradition. it shows how when youre dating it's one thing but when a person settles down, they go back to what they were taught at home, what they were taught in their culture and if you want to be apart of it, you should know all about what that means before getting into it.

I absolutely loved this book. It gave me the real perspective on life and marriage in Senegal and let me really know how the people truly behave and how dangerous the women really are. Never trust a big butt and a smile. I feel sorry for anyone that is not Senegalese that is married to one because this book gives you the real deal-straight with no chaser.

I had to read this book for a class in college. I enjoyed it very much!!

A beautifully written novel about love between a white British woman and a black man from Senegal. The two meet in school, and against all odds and family and cultural prejudices, finally marry. When things go wrong deeply held beliefs are challenged and the reader is shown the "other side of the story." Paradoxes are revealed, allowing the reader to think critically about serious issues of race, prejudice, marriage, fidelity, and more.

This novel was recommended by an IB DP English language teacher I work with, and I agree. I highly recommend it for high school (age 16 & up) and university reading lists. Translated from the French.

its a wake up call, it was my first book on the subject of interracial marriages I ever read, it sure widened my horizon.