Epistolary Sisterhood and Textual Healing: A Womanist Reading of Mariama Bâ’s (1981) So Long a Letter and Alice Walker’s (1982) The Color Purple

Karim Dembélé; Kessé Coulibaly

doi:10.65921/5h03cd85

Authors

Karim Dembélé Yambo Ouologuem University Author
Kessé Coulibaly Yambo Ouologuem University Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.65921/5h03cd85

Keywords:

Africana womanism, epistolarity, sisterhood, textual healing, patriarchal trauma

Abstract

African and African American women's literature shares a central concern with reclaiming the silenced female voice. The objective of this study is to examine how epistolarity functions simultaneously as a space of sisterhood and a mechanism of textual healing against patriarchal trauma in Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter (1981) and Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982). Methodologically, the study conducts a comparative, qualitative close reading combining narratological and thematic analysis of Ramatoulaye and Celie. This analysis is grounded in Africana Womanism (Hudson-Weems, 1993) and African Womanism (Ogunyemi, 1985), two African-centered frameworks prioritizing family, community, and cross-gender solidarity over individualist feminist opposition. The findings reveal that sisterhood and healing are structurally inseparable: both narrators transform isolation into collective agency through written address, where the addressee functions as an active witness rather than a passive recipient, culminating in resistance for Ramatoulaye and reunion for Celie. Consequently, the study concludes that epistolary literature must be re-evaluated as an agent of collective restoration, recommending that future research apply Africana womanist paradigms to broaden postcolonial trauma theory beyond Western individualistic models.

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