Day 2 of 365: Mariama Bâ and Imbolo Mbue

Yesterday was the first day of my "Readings from the Motherland."

I started two of the books: an old classic of African literature, "So Long A Letter" by Mariama Bâ, and a modern African classic, "Behold The Dreamers."

 I'm only about a quarter of the way with each book because of a slight illness. My pace should pick up soon and I hope to finish at least one of them by next week.

Each book is interesting in its own way.

"Behold The Dreamers" is a story about an immigrant family from Cameroon that moves to America. The father of this family starts working as a chauffeur for a Wall Street banker who works at Lehman Brothers just before the financial crash of 2008. The journey of these characters is made more interesting by the recent controversial travel ban instituted by the new American president.

"So Long A Letter" tells the story of Ramatoulaye, a Senegalese schoolteacher after the death of her husband. It is written as a letter to her childhood friend Aissatou. Bâ's writing is quite beautiful, written as a sequence of reminiscences, it's almost like watching a sequence of flashbacks in a film.