Ken Bugul's Cendres Et Braises

"Mother and l, We are Muslim Women": Islam and Postcolonialism in Mariama Ndoye's Comme Je bon pain and Ken Bugul's Cendres et braises

By Fatoumata Diahara Traoré

Institute of Islamic Studies McGill University Montreal Canada

August 2005

A Thesis Suhmitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts

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Abstract

Author: Fatoumata Diahara Traoré

Title: "Mother and I We Are Muslim Women": Islam and Postcolonialism in Mariama Ndoye's Comme le bon pain and Ken Bugul's Cendres et braises

Department: Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University

Degree: Master of Arts

This thesis is a literary analysis of two novels, Comme le bon pain (2001) by Mariama Ndoye and Cendres et braises (1994) by Ken Bugul. 1t examines the representation of Islam in relation to

African women's identity, with particular emphasis on its relationship with the postcolonial context of francophone West Africa. Chapter I reviews the emergence of African francophone literature by women authors and the trends of criticism that developed as a result of it. It also presents the theoretical framework of this research, namely feminist and postcolonial theories inspired by Frantz Fanon and African women theorists. Chapter II of this thesis explores the use of Sufi imagery in Cendres et braises and its metaphorical description of decolonization and of the postcolonial subject. Chapter III examines Comme le bon pain for Islamic elements and their interaction with African traditional beliefs, as it attempts to understand Ndoye's own attitude

towards Islam. It briefly reviews definitions of syncretism and what was termed "African Islam."

Chapter IV poses the question of whether the two novels can be inscribed within a feminist ideology, specifically in a postcolonial, West African and Muslim context. Hi

Résumé

Auteur: Fatoumata Diahara Traoré

Titre: "La Mère et moi, nous sommes des musulmanes»: Islam et post-colonialisme dans Comme le bon pain de Mariama Ndoye et Cendres et braises de Ken Bugul

Faculté: Institut d'Études Islamique, Université McGill

Grade: Maîtrise es Arts

Cette thèse consiste en une analyse littéraire de deux romans, Comme le bon pain (2001) de

Mariama Ndoye et Cendres et braises (1994) de Ken Bugul. Il s'agit d'une étude de la représentation de l'Islam par rapport à l'identité de la femme africaine, avec un intérêt particulier pour le rapport qui existe entre cette dernière et le contexte post-colonial en Afrique de l'Ouest francophone. Le premier chapitre présente le développement de la littérature féminine francophone en Afrique et les critiques littéraires qui en ont résultés. Elle introduit les théories sur lesquelles cette étude repose, notamment, les théories post-colonialistes inspirées par Frantz Fanon et les théoriciennes africaines sur le féminisme. Le second chapitre analyse les images évoquant le soufisme dans le roman Cendres et braises, ainsi que la construction d'une métaphore de la décolonisation et du sujet post-colonial. Le troisième chapitre interroge le roman Comme le bon pain en tentant d'en relever les éléments islamiques et des religions indigènes africaines afin de situer la position de Ndoye par rapport à l'Islam. Le quatrième chapitre pose la question du féminisme dans les deux œuvres littéraires, et de sa nature dans un contexte post-colonial, africain et musulman. iv

Acknowledgements

First, l owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Michelle Laura Hartman, my acaderIÙc advisor and thesis supervisor, without whose support and encouragement, this thesis could not have been completed. From the moment l considered undertaking this project, Professor

Hartman has offered her advice and suggestions. l am grateful for the countless hours she has devoted to supervising my research, for the intellectual stimulation and her unwavering support as this thesis took shape. It was my honour to be a student of a woman whose persistence, remarkable attention to detail, and inestimable reliability will remain sources of inspiration.

l wish to express my heartfelt thanks to the staff of the Institute of Islamic Studies, most particularly to Kirsty McKinnon and Ann Yaxley, for their con cern and kind assistance. l am grateful to the Institute of Islamic Studies for offering me two fellowships and for awarding me the Cedrik Goddard Scholarship.

l thank aIl my fellow colleagues, friends, and professors at the Institute for making my experience there an enriching and entertaining one.

My husband must be acknowledged for his patience, support and appreciation of my enterprise. l cannot imagine that any of this would have been possible without him and the countless hours of discussions that have "unstuck" me during difficult times while writing. l am blessed to have him. Last, but not least, l thank my parents and sisters for their constant and unconditional encouragement.

It is to my daughters, Iman and Leyla Myriam, whose background noise has paced my writing, that l offer this work. v

Table of Contents

Abstract ii

Résumé iii

Aclmowledgements iv

Table of Contents v

Preface 1

Chapter 1: Introduction 5

Chapter II: Cendres et braises: Mystical Islam as Resistance to Colonialism 20

Chapter III: Comme le bon pain: Between Islam and Traditional Religion 40

Chapter IV: Towards and African Feminism: Resistance and Transgression in 65 Cendres et braises and Comme le bon pain

Conclusion 86

Preface

This thesis represents an attempt to explore the question of "woman's experience of religion" in West Africa and in an Islamic society. This work follows in the footsteps of

Kenneth Harrow's enterprise of exploring Islam in African literature. The two novels at the center of this discussion, Comme le bon pain (2001) by Mariama Ndoye and Cendres et Braises

(1994) by Ken Bugul, share the following characteristic: their authors are Muslim women, their themes center on the female condition in a the Muslim society of Senegal, and the two were published in 2001 and 1994 respectively, making them very contemporary.

Mariama Ndoye was born June 28, 1953 in Rufisque (Senegal). She holds a doctoral degree in literature and has worked for several international organizations such as the

African Development Bank and the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire as a consultant and researcher. She is married and the mother of three children and a grandmother of three.

She currently resides in Tunis (funisia). Her published work includes two collections of short stories, children's books, and three novels. Comme le Bon Pain is her most recent novel.

Ken Bugul, whose given name is Mariétou Mbaye, was boro in 1948 in Senegal. She finished her high school education in Senegal, where she also spent a year in .the university . there, before obtaining a scholarship to Belgium. When she retumed from Belgium, she became the twenty-eighth wife of an old marabout who died a few months later. She later Traoré MA thesis ©2005 2

remarried a doctor from Ben1n-now deceased-- and had a daughter. She now works in a non-profit organization dedicated to African art. Her first nove!, Le Baobab Fou (1982) is an autobiographical narrative; Cendres et braises (1994) is the continuation of this first novel. Most recently, she published three novels Riwan ou le chemin de sable (1991), Lafolie ou la mort (2001) and Rue Félix-Faure (2005). Bugul's work has become a classic of African women's literature and is the focus of a number of works of criticism. Critics have analyzed mostly her novel Le

Baobab fou for the themes of insanity, colonialism, hybrid identity, and it was translated in

English. Mariama Ndoye's work has received far less recognition outside of West Africa, as 1 have not found any critical work on her novels.

My research proposes to bring a new perspective to the study of African literature by women writers in francophone West Africa. First, 1 have chosen novels published in 1994 and 2001, therefore departing from trends in criticism that centers on works published in the eighties. Among the reasons that guided my choice is the fact that these earlier works, considered pioneer works by women writers of that region, have been weil researched and have already been widely disseminated intemationally. Another key factor in my decision to study more recent works is the fact that Africa is undergoing tremendous political, economic change, as African societies are facing a metamorphosis of values, identities, and social orders. To disregard new trends in literature would be to do disfavour to the field of literary research and African studies. Traoré MA the sis ©2005 3

1 decided to focus on two Senegalese wnters for a number of reasons. First, due to rime and funding limitations ~s this is a master's thesis, 1 encountered difficulty obtaining recent works by Muslim West African women in other countries such as Guinea, Mali and the Ivory Coast. Senegal, with its rich literary production by women authors, proved to be the country from which recent novels were more readily accessible. In addition, the focus of my study on Islam made Senegal an interesting geographicallocation because, with Muslims representing ninety-five percent of the population, it is the West African country with the highest percentage of Muslims.

This thesis, entided '''Mother and 1, We are Muslim women': Islam and postcolonialism in Mariama Ndoye's Comme le bon pain and Ken Bugul's Cendres et braises,") will seek to answer the following question: How is Islam presented in relation to African women's identity in the two novels? What does this representation of Islam mean in the postcolonial context of francophone West Africa? Can these novels be inscribed within the feminist ideology, and if so, what kind of feminism can we talk about in a Muslim, francophone African, postcolonial context?

Chapter 1, "Introduction," reviews the emergence of African francophone literature by women authors and the trends of criticism that developed as a result of it. It also presents the theoretical framework of this research, namely feminist and postcolonial theories

1 This title is a translation of "La Mère et moi, nous sommes de la même religion. Nous sommes des musulmanes," on p. 110 of Cendres et braises. This statement by the protagonist affrrms her belonging to an Islamic community and her own identification with Islam as a woman. For that reason, 1 found it relevant to this entire thesis and therefore very appropriate for its title. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 4

inspired by Frantz Fanon and African women theorists. Chapter II of this thesis explores the use of Sufi imagery in Cendres et braises and its metaphorical description of decolonization and of the postcolonial subject. Chapter III examines Comme le bon pain for Islamic elements and their interaction with African traditional beliefs, as it attempts to understand Ndoye's own attitude towards Islam. It briefly reviews definitions of syncretism and what was termed

"African Islam." Finally, Chapter IV poses the question of whether the two novels can be inscribed within a feminist ideology, specifically Ïi1 a postcolonial, West African and Muslim context. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 5

Chapter 1:

Introduction

Words so carefully spoken, So softly voicing emotion new. Restraint, caution, a slip into The forbidden zone of possibility 1 probability Action on hold until the pattern Of honesty is, Until the fantasy of freedom becomes a reality. --Jacqueline Brice-Finch, "Perspectives," 1995.

This poem, published in Moving Bryond Boundaries: Volume I, International Dimensions of

Black Women's Writing,z reflects the process women writers and black women writers in particular experience as they engage in their art. As they step into the space of public speech, they realize that they are entering a domain that until recendy was limited to men. This is especially true in Africa, where the literacy rate for women is still four rimes as low as that of men in some countries.3 Despite the fact that critics unanimously dated the beginnings of

African women literature at 1975, the first publications by women writers date back to 1942 in the forms of short narratives, articles or translations of African folk songs published in

2 Molara Ogundipe-Leslie and Carol Boyce Davies, eds., Moving Beyond Boundaries, Vol. 1: International Dimensions ofBlack Women's Writing, London: Pluto Press, 1995,224. 3 Banque Africaine de Développement, Rapport sur le développement en Afrique 1998 : Développement du capital humain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Traoré MA the sis ©2005 6

colonial press.4 Accorcling to Pierrette Hertzberger-Fofana in her work on African francophone women writers, the first novel by an African francophone woman was published in 1956 was Ngonda by Marie-Claire Matip (Cameroon). It is an autobiographical narrative about the narrator's upbringing in a traditional Cameroonian family. It recounts the story of the narrator's admission in primary school and later in secondary school. At the end of the novel, it describes the marriage ceremony of the narrator. After the pioneering writers of the 1970s, it is in the 1980s that African women became more noticeable on the international francophone literary scene. Accorcling to Jean-Marie Volet and Beverly

Ormerod's bibliography, at least fifty novels were published between 1980 and 1990, compared to approximately ten in the 1970s.5 Francophone women writers emerged later than Anglophone women writers in Africa, publishing almost a decade later than the latter.6

The principal reason of this relatively late appearance of francophone women writers was the lack of education in French for girls in colonial rimes. Only one high school, École

Normale des Jeunes Filles de Rufisque, located in Senegal, was built to accommodate female students from an of francophone West Africa. Girls were reluctandy sent to school by their parents because they participated in household chores and were raised to become wives and mothers. Moreover, even women who received French instruction had litde rime to

4 Pierrette Hertzberger-Fofana, Littérature Féminine Francophone d'Afrique Noire, Paris: L'Hannattan, 2000,35-43. 5 Jean-Marie Volet and Beverley Onnerod, Romancières africaines d'expressionfrançaise: le Sud du Sahara, Paris: L'Hannattan, 1994. 6 Odile Cazehave, Femmes Rebelles: naissance d'un nouveau roman africain auféminin, Paris: L'Hannattan, 1994,4. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 7

withdraw and to write because of their social obligations linked to their roles as wives and mothers. Gender roles specific to traditional African structures, however, should not be viewed as the principal obstacle to women's literary production. In her introduc:tory work on

African francophone literature, Christiane Ndiaye argues that the late emergence of women writers should not be attributed to the traditional structures, but rather to limitations due to the publishing difficulties francophone African writers faced. For instance, colonial publishing companies favoured missionary publications, while African publishers lacked funding and faced censorship from dictatorial govemments. Ndiaye argues that African women have traditionally played an active role in the oral literary genres, with women

"griottes" acting as story-tellers and poets.7

When francophone women writers began to publish, Senegalese women were among the first and have continued to this day to produce the bulk of literary works by West African women. Senegal is the only predominantly Muslim country to produce so much in the literary field, as available bibliographies show.8

The history of francophone African literature very generally can be divided into three main periods: the colonial period, the independence period, and the postcolonial period. The colonial period saw the rise of well-known African writers such as Léopold Sédar Senghor,

Sembène Ousmane and Camara Laye. Aoua Keita (M:ali) with her autobiography Femme

7 Christiane Ndiaye, "L'Afrique sUbsaharienne," in Introduction aux littératures francophones, Montréal: Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2004, 96-97. 8 Christine Guyonneau, "Francophone Women Writers from Sub-Saharan Africa: A Preliminary Bibliography," Calla/oo 8.2 (1985): 453-83. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 8

d'Afrique. La vie d'Aoua Keita racontée par elle-même (1975) where she recounts her political

activism during the colonial period figures among the most wel1-known works of this

period.9 The independence period marked the emergence of more women authors, such as

Mariama Bâ and "Myriam Warner-Vieyra. The contemporary period, or what 1 call here the

postcolonial period, is witnessing an explosion of literary production throughout

francophone Africa, with works by women representing more than half of all the works

"published. African literature, in English and in French, has a relatively small readership

around the world, a fact that explains the unflattering naming of Africa as "the Black

continent". Women writers, in particular, still face difficulty receiving recognition for their

literary works, and literary criticism on their works is scarce still, aside from a few journal

articles, papers and very few books. Gradually, they are beginning to emerge as a recognized

and important aspect of African literature, with the realization that, in a critic's words:

Far from constructing a marginalliterature, African women writers have opened a space for discussion that figures prominendy in the cultural debate in francophone Africa.10

This emergence of women as producers of African literature rais es several questions:

Who is the African woman writer? What is her role? It is undeniable that the African woman

9 Born: in 1915, Aoua Kéita was among the fIfst women to receive French instruction. She was admitted into the school of Medicine of Dakar where she earned a nurse-midwife diploma. She did n.ot have children and separated from her husband in 1947, fmally devoting herself to her political activism and her struggle for Mali' s sovereignty. She renounces French citizenship in 1951. She becomes a deputy in the fIfst National Assembly of the Federation of Mali (which includes present-day Senegal and Mali). Femme d ;Afrique. La Vie de Aoua Kéita racontée par elle-même ends with the political scission of Senegal and Mali as two independent states. " 10 Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru and Ketu H. Katrak, eds., Nwanyibu : Womanbeing and African Literature, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1997,2. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 9

writer is educated, and therefore part of an elite in countries where the illiteracy rate is still high among women. Critic and theorist of feminism Molara Ogundipe-Leslie suggests that the African woman writer should be a committed writer. 11 As such, she should be committed to correcting stereotypes of the women in Africa, to telling the public about what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be a Third-World person. Her responsibility as a woman is threefold: as a writer, as a woman, and as a Third-World subject, the African woman writer is entrusted with the act of writing about the reality of the African women and of her country. Ogundipe-Leslie's contention that the African woman writer should be a committed writer, however, suggests an activism that women writers, as artists, should not have to embrace in' my opinion.

Here, 1 argue that creative writing, as an art, should be appreciated as ail artistic production regardless of its engagement in a particular cause or with a political message. In addition, women writers should not be judged merely for their representations of women, nor shocld they be responsible for speaking for other women for several reasons.

Indeed, women writers are not necessarily in a better position to give an accurate representation of women in their works than their male counterpart. As educated women, usually raised in an urban elitist environment, should she be entrusted with the representation of urban women from more modest backgrounds or with that of rural women? lIMolara Ogundipe-Leslie, Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformations, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994,57-67. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 10

It is true that the way African women were represented in male writers' works in

Africa often failed to highlight the positive aspects of African womanhood, which led critics and African writers to the conclusion that an important difference of representation existed between male and female writers.12 Hùwever, 1 propose here that as critics, we should stay clear of the concept of the "African woman" as if aU African women, despite their differences in class, religion, and ethnicity, were part of a monolithic group. Studying African women through their literature should require studying the sociology of the authors themse1ves. As members of the elite, African women writers may not have experienced harsh realities faced by the majority of women in their societies.

The fact that they are Westem-educated, as weil as the fact that they are writing publicly for an audience of male and female readers makes them twice-removed from the

"traditional African woman"-also not to be understood as constituting a monolithic group.

The reality for the most African women, in urban and rural areas, is characterized by economic poverty, lack of infrastructure, and the struggle to survive in an increasingly capitalist world.

The discourse around African women's literature has insisted on depicting the

African women's social conditions, and what 1 caU "victimization", particularly polygamy and female circumcision (also referred to as "female genital mutilation" in the West). Critical attention to African women's literature has also tended to focus on the African woman as

victim of her society. Most of the criticism and research on African women writers center on women's social conditions and indigenous feminism,13 with very fewresearchers pursuing the study of literary works further than examinations of expressions of womanhood,14 feminism and concepts specifie to the gender of the authors.15 While men writers' critics examined various concepts such as violence, political ideologies, and religious values, critical works on African women literature reveal a serious gap in research on the question of religion.

Oral traditions date the introduction of Islam into West Africa to the twelfth century, when Muslim merchants spread their faith through exchanges in marketplaces. In the eighteenth and nineteenth èenturies, jihadic movements by the Fulas of the Kaarta region and later by the Tukuloor al-Hajj Umar Tal contributed to the expansion of Islam among kingdoms from the Senegal River to the eastem banks of the Niger. Earlier jihadi movements in present-day Nigeria by Uthman Dan Fodio had already tumed that region into a series of Muslim kingdoms. The place that Islam occupies in West African cultures

and values is such that critics of colonial and independence authors such as Hamadou

Hampate Bâ, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and Camara Laye have examined religion extensively

13 For an example of such works see Janice Lee Liddell and Yakini Belinda Kemp, eds., Arms Akimbo: Africana women in contemporary literature, Gainesville, FL: University Press ofFlorida, 1999. 14 See Juliana Nfah-Abbenyi, Gender in African Women's Writing: ldentity, Sexuality, and Difference, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. 15 See Cazenave, Femmes rebelles. Such works include Kembe Milolo, L'image de lafemme chez les romancières de l'Afrique noire francophone, Fribourg, Suisse: Éditions universitaires, 1986. Also, Donald Wehrs, African F eminist Fiction and lndigenous Values, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2001. In addition, see Susan Ardnt, The Dynamics ofAfrican F eminism: defining and classifYing African feminist literatures, trans. Isabel Cole, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2002. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 12

16 ln their texts. These studies have examined how Islamic tradition and culture are represented in works of fiction, while reflecting on the heterogeneity of Islam on the African continent. Critics have also proposed the existence of an African Islamic culture and literature. This attention to Islam in West African fiction has unfortunate1y thus far been litnited to the works of male writers. In fact, the litde research published on sub-Saharan

African women's literature does not explore the subject of Islam. Even fewer works has been· done on the relationship of West African women with Islam, likely due to certain assumptions. One of them is the prevalent view that women are marginal to the culture of

Islam, which is perceived as excluding and subordinating women.17 When research deals with the African women's place in religion, it is often with a focus on traditional pre-Islamic cuits and beliefs, such as spirit possession rites. 18 This is possibly due to the fact that African women's involvement and participation in traditional indigenous religion is considerable, as research has shown.19

Hertzberger-Fofana, in her comprehensive work on francophone African women writers, included a study of Islam in the works of Aminata Sow Fall, but her analysis is somewhat superficial, as her objective in reality was to constitute a dictionary of African

16 See Kenneth Harrow, Faces ofIslam in African Literature, Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1991; also by the same author, The Marabout and the Muse, New Approaches to Islam in African Literature, Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1996. 17 M. Bovin, "Muslim Women in the Periphery: The West African Sahel," Women in Islamic Societies, London and Malmo: Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies, 1983,66-103. 181. M. Lewis, Les religions de l'extase, Paris: PUF, 1977. 19 Ibid. Traoré MA thesis ©200S 13

women writers.20 When Islam is examined in the writing of African women, it is usually because their culture is viewed as Islamic-Arab, hence the focus on North Africa.21 In most of the research, Islam is portrayed as a patriarchal religion, with men as its actors and defenders, and women as passive and excluded. Even in criticism of works by or about

Muslim women, the premise that feminism or women's well-being is incompatible with

Islam has been ever-present. It is in response to these trends (or lack thereof!) in criticism that this research proposes to explore the representation of Islam in francophone African fiction by women.

Theoretical framework

The theoretical frameworks of this study derive from postcolonial and feminist theories. In the 1960s, greater numbers of women professionals - lawyers, scientists and professors - brought about a questioning of masculinist production of knowledge. In the field of religious studies, women began to develop new methods of interpreting sacred texts.22 For example, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza created a system of re-reading androcentric texts which she called "feminist henneneutics of suspicion." This system

20 Hertzberger-Fofana, 143-185. 21 For studies on women writers from North Africa, see Marta Segarra, Leur pesant de poudre: les romancières francophones du Maghreb, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997. For studies ofIslam in Maghrebi literature see Jean Déjeux, Le sentiment religieux dans la littérature maghrébine de langue française, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1986; and Carine Bourget, Coran et Tradition islamique dans la littérature maghrébine, Paris: Karthala, 2002. 22 Miriam Peskowitz et al., "Roundtable Discussion: What's In a Name? Exploring the Dimensions ofWhat Feminist Studies in Religion Means," Journal ofFeminist Studies in Religion, Il (1995): 111-36. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 14

challenged traditional male interpretations and of the representation of femaleness in sacred texts.23 As a result, women studying Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Chinese religions have since challenged established systems in various religious beliefs and practices. Well-known contemporary Muslim feminists such as Leila Ahmed and Fatima Mernissi, on the model of their Christian and Jewish predecessors, propose new readings and interpretations of Islamic theology, "sacred" texts, Islamic history and work to bring the woman question to the forefront of religious traditions.24 From a literary perspective, Assia Djebar's attempt at rewriting history through fiction from a female point of view in Loin de Médine (1991) also falls into this category of Muslim feminist works. Djebar and Mernissi, as insiders to the Islamic religion, root their arguments in the established tradition. While Mernissi undertakes a revisionist reading of sacred texts, Djebar uses the voices of women who were the contemporaries of the Prophet of Islam to present objections to the official interpretations of Islamic traditions. By showing how important Islamic figures such as Aicha (the Prophet's wife) and Fatima (the Prophet's daughter) rebelled against unfair male abuse of power, Loin de Médine urges all Muslim women to stand up against what they consider oppressive and unjust.25

23 Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory ofHer: A Feminist Reconstruction ofChristian Origins, New York: Crossroads, 1983. 24 Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots ofa Modern Debate, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992; and Fatima Memissi, The Veil and the Male Elite, A Feminist Interpretation ofWomen's Rights in Islam, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1991. 25 Assia Djebar, Loin de Médine, Paris: Albin Michel, 1991. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 15

My own inquiry into the works of African women writers is inscribed within this tradition of feminist studies in religion. 1 propose to study the representation of Islam in the text as a manifestation and a demonstration of "women's experience." This focus on women's experience of Islam is in response to the histûrical focus on "men's experience" of religion. In sacred texts and in the Qur'an in particular, the focus on man (insan) as "human" has actually signified a focus on "men". When question of women in religion was considered, it was mostly as a "special" case or as a curiosity of nature. Therefore, 1 propose that a feminist hermeneutics of sacred texts should be complemented with the study of women's experience of religion. 1 believe that studying women's religious experience through literature will highlight the religious reality while accounting for social factors in their experiences such as postcolonialism, race, and geography, as well as historicity. In conducting a literary analysis of religion in texts in a West African postcolonial context, 1 hope to participate in the uncovering of a meta-narrative of women's experience of religion.

My examination of Bugul and Ndoye is therefore informed primarily by the understanding of African feminism developed by African women theorists. Many women writers from Africa, such as Ghanaian Ama Ata Aidoo and Nigerian Buchi Emecheta, do not feel that the term "feminist" is an appropriate designation for their work. The association of the term "feminism" with Western culture and values makes it ptoblematic for these African women to identify with it. Another reason for the rejection of the feminist movement by African women is their apprehension and distrust of white organizations. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 16

What Catherine Acholonu tenued "motherism" came to be viewed as a more appropriate tenu, more in line with indigenous African values. Acholonu denounced Western feminism as being counter-productive, even destructive to the cause of African women:

It is impractical, almost suicidaI, for the African woman to adopt Western feminist ideologies without regard for the basis and fundamentall historical, cultural and ideological differences in experiences, world view and "raison d'être" of both cultures.26

If African theorists of feminism have been sharply aware of the dangers associated with blindly adopting the feminist ideology as fonuulated by Western women, it is because their realities on the African continent were different and rooted in specific cultural and historical circumstances. As a result, theorists of African descent, From the diaspora and From Africa, have presented new ways to think about the women's movement, feminism and womanhood in their specific contexts. In Chapter Three of this thesis, 1 will review in more detail the various theories on African feminism.

As works issued from a literary history marked by French colonialism, Comme le bon pain and Cendres et braises have to be read as accounting for the colonial and postcolonial experience of the authors and of their countries. For that purpose, theories of colonialism as presented in the writings of Frantz Fanon are particularly useful in understanding Bugul's autobiographical novel. His writing on the colonizer's mind, on the inferiority complex of the colonized subject and of the colonized subjects' desire to access the white world through

26 Catherine O. Acholonu, Motherism: The Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism, published lmder the Let's Help Humanitarian Project (LHHP), Women in Environmental Development Series, vol.3. In collaboration with the Nigerian Institute ofIntemational Affairs (NHA), 1995: 103-104. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 17

one's love partner clarify postcolonial oppresslOn as presented in primary texts of this research. Moreover, Alfred Lopès' theorizing of the post-colonial subject's mind as it grapples with feelings of guilt for its complicity with coloruzation also grounds the classification of Ken Bugul's work within postcolonialist literary productions.27 Furthermore,

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's theory on language in African literature has informed my understanding of Comme le bon pain and Cendres et braises as novels written by African writers who express themselvesin French - the language of the colonizer. In Ngugi's view,

European languages act as a medium of understanding the world, so that Africa is viewed as it relates to the European culture. N gugi argues that African writers, as products of a

Eurocentric education, represent a petty-bourgeoisie of intellectuals who have intemalized colonizer's views and values.28 While it is ~portant to keep Ngugi's discussion in mind to understand the production of francophone African writers, it should not be assumed that the use of the French language 1S a conscious and strategic choice for the authors.

Mawkward and Cazenave argue that African women writers have an unproblematic relationship with the French language:

The French language is neither an object of reverence nor a source of existential anxiety. It has not ye reached the luxurious status of a personal enemy in need of masterful deconstruction, but rather functions as an unfamiliar road to new forms of power. Here, the primary value of

27 Alfred Lopès, Posts and Pasts: A Theory ofPosteoloniaUsm, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 28 Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Deeolonising the Mind: The PoUties ofLanguage in Afriean Literature, Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1986. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 18

language in literary usage is that of an instrument to promote change or reveal its possibility.29

This argument that the French language is an unproblematic e1ement for African women writers fails to account for the colonial legacy of these authors. The very fact that they are writing in a language other than the one they grew up speaking reveals a dual identity on the part of these writers. These authors are making sense of the world through writing in a language other than the one people speak in their own world. This results ~nevitably in a

Eurocentric way of interpreting their Wolof-speaking world.

This study consists of three chapters following this one, each of whic:h is a literary analysis of the two works of fiction from different angles. Chapter Two examines Ken

Bugul's Cendres et braises as a postcolonial nove1 inscribed within what Lopès sees as an attempt by the writer to understand her own colonial heritage and postcolonial identity. It explores Islamic mysticism as presented in the novel as a symbolism for the process of

decolonizing the mind of the postcolonial subject. The nove1 Cendres et braises recounts the

journey of a young Senegalese woman to Europe, her abusive relationship with a white man,

and her return home to her mother, where she seeks healing and solace from her past

experiences. Chapter Three analyzes Muslim identity in Comme le bon pain, building on

theories of syncretism in postcolonial contexts, in order to explore new ways to think about

Islam and gender in West Africa. Mariama Ndoye's Comme le bon pain tells the story of Bigué, a woman comes to grip with her newly polygamous marriage, while reflecting on love relationships, women's social conditions and well-being. The final chapter juxtaposes Bugul's and Ndoye's strategies of resistance and transgression of patriarchy in the postcolonial West

African context in their novels. It argues that the two fictional works should be classified as

African feminist literature. This chapter includes a discussion of different definitions of

Chapter II: Cendres et braises Mystical Islam as resistance to colonialism

Ken Bugul's novel Cendres et braises was published in 1994, three decades after Senegal gained its independence from the French rule. Yet, the presence of French cultural hegemony and the use of the French language in the novel is a reminder of the strong impact colonization had on Bugul as a writer. Critic and theorist of postcolonialism Alfred

Lopès argues that the postindependence subject is struggling with a "reckoning with whiteness." In postindependence narratives, according to Lopès, one can identify three factors. First, the protagonist is negotiating a position in relation to a society that has often hindered his! her personal progress. Second, the protagonist struggles before coming to terms with the coloniallegacy. Third, the protagonist realizes her or his desire for the Other, a desire against dictates and norms of society30. Lopès' theory is based on autobiographical works, and Cendres et braises, an autobiographical novel, con tains all these elements. It is my contention that as Cendres et braises describes colonization and the process of decolonization; according to this pattern, it also envisions a particular way of achieving liberation: through

Islamic mysticism.

Colonialism and the postindependence suhject

The overarching structure of Cendres et braises clearly reflects a West African narrative coping \Vith issues of colonialism and postcolonialism. This is inscribed in the plot, the characters and the language of the text. Marie Ndiaga, a young Senegalese woman enamoured with French ways falls in love with a French man whom she follows to Paris.

Once there, she discovers that he is married but hopes he will get a divorce. As the relationship develops, it becomes abusive, as the man turns out to be alcoholic and violent.

After years of abuse, Marie Ndiaga returns to Senegal to her mother's village. It: is made clear from the beginning of the novel that Marie Ndiaga's position in her society does not conform to its norms. She is not married, has no children, and does not work, all of which in the eyes of her society means that she is failure and marginalized from the social norms of her Senegalese village. But even before she left Senegal, this young woman felt that there was a gap between herself and her society, a gap which she neither could, nor wanted to bridge.

She describes the young woman she was as follows:

Émancipée par elle-même ou par les circonstances, elle menait une vie où l'illusion de la liberté avait des relents amers. Elle relâchait les attaches avec la famille par appréhension d'incommunicabilité; elle cherchait ailleurs et essayait de créer avec les compagnons de sa génération un rapport où le repère de base était absent. (43) (myemphasis)

The young woman has lost the ability to connect with her family and with its traditions. This inability to feel a sense of belonging creates an emptiness that she tries to fill wilth friends her Traoré MA thesis ©2005 22

age, who themselves come from different backgrounds. Her attempts to connect with them are equally vain, because something fundamental is lacking: a common sense of identity. This paragraph reflects the fact that Senegalese youth are trying to find their identity, outside of their traditions, but are failing to completely establish their identity away from their families and cultural heritage. This aspect of the young characters in the novel uuderscores the impact colonialism had on Senegalese identity. .

Furthennore, the coloniallegacy acts as a confusing force to Marie Ndiaga. Not ouly is it the standard of excellence to which Africans aspire, but it is also a questioning of native values and identity. The young Marie is deeply affected by the mixed messages that the coloniallegacy sends.

Je n'arrivais pas à me trouver, à me déterminer. La conscience était là, mais c'était de la fabrication. Une conscience fabriquée. l'étais privée de possibilités affectives qui m'auraient permis de me retremper aux sources, je n'avais pas non plus la possibilité politique de m'expliquer. Il semblait que ce monde-là était trop fenné pour que librement l'individu puisse y accéder et dire ce qu'il pensait. On était conscientisé mais on n'était pas organisé. (58)

On the one hand, Senegal aspires to resemble the fonner colonizing nation, yet on the other, it inherits immorality and corruption, intrinsic aspects of colonialism. The protagonist does not hold back her words. On this topic, she denounces the lack of democracy and the hypocrisy of postcolonial nations. The colonial episode had forever changed the nature of her home society. She was aware of its legacy of poverty, changed values, and social injustice. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 23

Le choc avec la société précipita la violence. Tout s'était passé trop rapidement. De l'histoire, nous n'avions pas retenu l'essentiel: conscientisation dédramatisation - acquisition. J'avais trouvé une société bouleversée. Une société de classes. Je n'avais pas besoin d'une analyse politique pour m'en rendre compte. La famille dans laquelle je me retrouvai à la ville en était la parfaite illustration. Tout le monde cherchait à s'embourgeoiser, surtout les femmes, les éternelles victimes de tout bouleversement. Et plus personne ne voulait rester dans les campagnes. Démographie galopante à la ville? Non. Exode massif. (106)

Economic development gtves nse to econonuc violence, as most Africans are attempting to achieve the lifestyle of the colomzer. These attempts fail for most, as they leave villages to go to the city, where illusions of wealth and success give place to harsh disappointment in the face of worse conditions than the ones they left behind them. The

Senegalese are still trying to make sense of their colomal legacy, infrastructures and democratic concepts. As industrialization and economic development progresses, success and status become determined by financial power. The result is utter confusion, materialism, and loss of values: money has become the ultimate goal for encire families.

Furthermore, Marie Ndiaga's ambivalent relationship with France and Senegal are reflected in her personal relationships. The protagomst is drawn to the Other, to the White man. Her sexual relationship and her destructive attraction for Y, the white man she follows to France, is revealing. The first time Y is mentioned, his whiteness is emphasized and underlined: «un Blanc, un pur toubab, celui qu'on appelait chez nous

rouge."(57) Tbis line is the ooly descriptive element Bugul provides us with about the man's appearance. In this regard, Frantz Fanon's discussion of the black-white relationship is enlightening. Fanon questions the authenticity of love between a black woman and a white man. T 0 him, the feeling of being inferior cripples feelings of true love between a black woman and a white man. Like Mayotte of the novel Je suis Martiniquaise cited in Fanon's discussion, Marie Ndiaga does not ask or nor demand anything from her white lover but "a little wruteness in her life.,,31 Like Marie Ndiaga, Mayotte ooly describes her lover in terms of race: it does not matter that he he handsome, tall or short; rus wruteness is what makes him attractive.

The fact that Marie Ndiaga loves whiteness ends up destroying her. In this respect,

Bugul is presenting us with a metaphor of the colonized love or attraction to the former colonizer. Like thousands of other West Africans who immigrate annually to France, Marie

Ndiaga gets bumed by her desire for the Other. Her relationship with Y is characterized by three elements: false promises followed by disappointments, verbal and physical abuse, and illegitimacy and illegality in society. False promises and disappointments are the aspects of

Marie Ndiaga'srelationsrup with Y that become fust apparent when she arrives in France, as thls passage shows:

J'avais étouffé des hurlements de douleurs, de désespoir, d'humiliation. Par les après-midi que je restais rue de Sèvres, je me jouais des scènes; je hurlais à la mort sans faire sortir aucun son les traits de mon visage étaient déformés. J'en voyais le reflet sur l'écran muet de la télévision.

Cet homme qui disait m'aimer, qui m'avait aimée, qui disait oublier que j'étais noire tellement j'étais assimilée à lui, comment pouvait-il en me traitant de sale négresse essayer de m'humilier, de me rabaisser en tant qu'être humain? (133).

Marie Ndiaga sees Y's promises of a romantic relationsrup characterized by equality for both partners turo into betrayal and humiliation. She thought that Y would forget about her race and accept her into rus wrute circle, yet she is called a "dirty nigger" by him. For someone who. tried so much to become wrute, to assimilate into French culture, being reminded of her racial inferiority is the ultimate insult.

The shattered hopes of being accepted by her wrute lover are precursors to the violence Marie Ndiaga soon suffers from him. Y's violence towards Marie Ndiaga is a metaphor of the political and colonial violence wruch Senegal has suffered and is suffering in

. the hands of the former colonizer.

"Sale nègre, sale race, on comprend pourquoi ce fut avec vous qu'on fit la traite des esclaves. Vous ne pouvez être que des esclaves ou des putains; vous n'avez rien, vous n'êtes rien; et moi je vous connais, je connais votre sale race." Il me parlait ainsi tout en me frappant comme un dément. Il m'avait frappée jusqu'à ce que je ne sente plus rien, nulle part. Il me frappait à la tête, au ventre, au visage. (131)

Not only does Y hurt Marie Ndiaga with rus words, with references to slavery and to the rustorical prostitution of African women to wrute colonizers, but he also beats her. His words are the reflection of the dependence complex that black and colonized people have intemalized. Y tells Marie Ndiaga that the black race is nothing and possesses nothing. Bugul also presents colonialism through the colonizer's present-day dis course on its benefits for Traoré MA thesis ©2005 26

African people. The colonial rhetoric is sarcastically presented in the text in the words of a

French family where Marie Ndiaga is having dinner. In response to Marie Ndiaga's criticism of colonialism, her French host tells her: "Tu vois, tu es en Europe, à Paris, ce soir; tu as fait des études, tu peux discuter avec nous, cela est déjà un privilège que tu n'aurais pas eu si tu n'avais pas été colonisée." (86) In a different passage, Marie Ndiaga's French name and her knowledge of French are underlined as positive characteristics that justify the fact that the

French family invited her: "Marie est avec nous ici ce soir, chez nous, nous l'avons invitée.

C'est une jolie fille qui parle bien français, je trouve." (87) Fanon explains this dependence complex as a sense that the colonized feels devoid of any value, feels like a parasite in the world and needs to become white in order to gain value and consideration.32 This is reflected in Cendres et braises in Y and Marie Ndiaga's relationship which is characterized by its illegitimacy and illegality in the norms of both societies, because Y is married and she is his mistress.

Marie Ndiaga's love relationship is but one aspect of her complex relationship to colonialism, her entire character is built around the notion of a dual identity. Marie Ndiaga's hybridity is even indicated in her very name: Marie is a French name, while Ndiaga is

Senegalese. The multiple spaces of the text reinforce this duality of the protagonist. Who is the protagonist? Is she the French-speaking, Westem-Iooking, outspoken woman with a taste for French cheese, wine, and fine cuisine? Or is she rather the reserved, obedient,

Wolof-speaking woman who sees beauty in every African thing? Bugul constructs a

. character this way who symbolizes a generation described by historian Sheldon Gellar:

In addition to its high degree of mobility, Senegalese rural youth are also less attached to traditional values than their elders, and more individualistic (Gellar, 105).33

As Gellar describes Senegalese rural youth they have lost traditional values, but have adopted

imported values from the French, individualism being one of them. This can be seen in

Marie Ndiaga's alienation from her own societal norms and her valuing of French culture

above her own Senegalese culture.

Language is a further issue underlining this duality. Marie Ndiaga's language, the text,

is not written in an indigenous African language but a colonial import: French. The French

language is the most obvious sign of the colonizer's cultural values and knowledge and the

protagonist is aware of this. Ngugi's essay on language in African literature argues that as

Africans adopt European languages, they are also intemalising Eurocentric worldviews and

cultural values.34 In Cendres et braises Marie Ndiaga chooses to mark her distance from the

. African society, when she chooses consciously to speak the colonizer's language. The

protagonist's state of mind is explicidy expressed in the novel as follows, for example:

Nous parlions la langue de l'ailleurs entre nous, surtout en public et quand nous parlions notre langue, notre propre langue, celle que nous avions tétée, nous la déformions presque. Ah, l'ailleurs, tu apaisas la conscience! L'ailleurs, la référence.

Pour nous autres, l'ailleurs était devenu uri mythe (44).

Hence, she attaches the stigma of inferiority to her native language which she does not speak in public. Marie Ndiaga and her friends are so distant from their own native culture that they are unable or perhaps unwilling to speak their own language correctly. By showing their inability to speak their indigenous African language, while publicly speaking French, Marie

Ndiaga and her friends are marking the fact that they belong to France more than to Senegal.

In this respect, Marie Ndiaga's relationship with the French language is a good illustration of

Fanon's discussion of the black man and the colonizer's language. Fanon describes the relationship between the colonized subject and language as follows:

Tout peuple colonisé - c'est-à-dire tout peuple au ~ein duquel a pris naissance un complexe d'infériorité, du fait de la mise au tombeau de l'originalité culturelle locale - se situe vis-à-vis du langage de la nation civilisatrice, c'est-à-dire de la culture métropolitaine. Le colonisé se sera d'autant plus échappé de sa brousse qu'il aura fait siennes les valeurs culturelles de la métropole. Il sera d'autant plus blanc qu'il aura rejeté sa noirceur, sa brousse (16).

When one possesses a language, one becomes privy to the civilization and the culture from which it is issued. As Marie Ndiaga attempts to establish her identity in postindependence

Senegal, language is an obvious way of showing her distinctiveness from indigenous culture.

The second indicator of Marie Ndiaga's alienation from Senegalese culture is her feeling of lacking roots which is manifest in her characterization. In particular, Marie Ndiaga is characterized by a high mobility thtough various spaces, milieus, and societies. Bugul draws the protagonist as being extremely mobile as she quickly negotiates societies in Cendres Traoré MA thesÎs ©2005 29

et braises. First, she moves from the village to the city in Senegal. As a young child, Marie

N diaga moves from one village to the other to go live with her mother. As a teenager she goes to Dakar, the capital city, to pursue her studies. There, she dates different men, enjoys outings to night-clubs, shares the company of friends who are as fascinated as she is by

French culture. One day, she meets a French man, who is on a business trip in Senegal and urges her to return to France with him. Although she has a boyfriend in Senegal, she lies that she is going on a trip to France alone and does not inform her family ofher departure. Once in Paris, Y shows her to an apartment in a fancy neighbourhood confesses that he is married.

From then on, he cornes and goes as he pleases between his wife and Marie Ndiaga, who believes his promises that he will get a divorce. One day, his wife discovers about his infidelity and asks for a divorce. Y becomes depressed, drinks more and begins to physically abuse Marie Ndiaga. During one of the fights, the police is called and Marie Ndiaga is herself wrongly accused of abuse. Intemed in a psychiatric hospital, Marie Ndiaga suffers from nostalgia and yearning for her mother. When she is discharged, she flies back to her native village. There, she meets the Sufi Marabout with who she spends a lot of time. At the end of the novel, Marie Ndiaga marries the Marabout.

Marie Ndiaga's mobility, instead of indicating independence, points to her absence of roots. Marie Ndiaga goes to the city to continue her education because there is no university of high school in her native village. When she leaves Senegal to follow the man she loves, it is under pressure from him. She leaves like a runaway, without informing her farnily and Traoré MA thesis ©2005 30

friends about it. Once in France, her lover gives her an apartment, but Marie Ndiaga takes long walks to fight her solitude and in order to become accepted in the neighbourhood and in the city of Paris at large. Her outings with an African friend reveal her inability to identify with the African community in Paris, nor with the French' society. She is not attached to a particular place; she does not have a Home. Mildred Mortimer, in her study of Bugul's first novel Le Baobab fou, notes that the joumeying of the protagonist only confirms the Marie

Ndiaga's sense of alienation.35 In Cendres et braises, Marie Ndiaga will have to renounce her mobility in order to find her roots. After she retums to her mother's home, she stays in the house ail day, where she recounts her story to the neighbour's wife. The text's description of colonialism in explicit and implicit ways gives us a better understanding of Bugul's discussion of decolonization, or liberation as a process, which l will study in the next part of this chapter.

Decolonization through Islamic mysticism

The purpose of Marie Ndiaga's retum to Senegal after years in France is stated clearly in Cendres et braises: she has come back to purify herself from the "frenchization" of her mind, her body, and her sou1; to find her true self. According to the textual logic, only upon her retum to Senegal can the "decolonizing" begin. Lopès theorizes stages through which the unconscious of the colonized passes, during and after colonization. His theory,

with its focus on the postcolonial unconscious of the colonized and the colonized models of discourses and conditions, is useful for the study of Cendres et braises. Lopès identifies a:

postcolonial or postindependence stage during which the colonized culture's previous complicities with the colonizer - and present acceptance and intemalization of the colonizer's cultural values and knowledge come to light and are, again less successfully, suppressed.

This intemalization of the colonizer's values is instrumental to the de-colonization process.

As Sarnia Meruez defmes it:

Decolonization ... continues to be an active confrontation with a hegemonic system of thought and hence a process of historical and culturalliberation. As such, decolonization becomes the contestation of aIl dominant forms and structures, whether they be linguistic, discursive, or ideological.36

Mehrez makes it clear that decolonization is not simply an event that happens one day and can be dated, for example at 1960, the date of Senegal's independence. Decolonization in

Cendres et braises is shown to be an ongoing and continuous process which the postcolonial

subject has to experience, similar to the process of spiritual elevation in Sufism. Several

African novels such as The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih, L'aventure ambigüe by Cheikh

Harnidou Kane were shown by Kenneth Harrow to contain elements of Sufism. It is my

contention here that Cendres et braises should be included among them.37

In the nove!, Marie Ndiaga finds her way through the complicated emotional and

psychological process of decolonization by becoming initiated into Islamic mysticism.

36 Sarnia Mehrez, "The Subversive Poetics of Radical Bilingualism: Postcolonial Francophone North African Literature," The Rounds afRace, Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1991,258. 37 Kenneth Harrow wrote an article about Sufism in African literature entitled "The Power and the Word : L'Aventure Ambiguë and The Wedding afZein," African Studies Review, Vol.30, Number 1, March 1987, 63-78. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 32

According to the textual logic, healing from the colonizing experience can only happen through the Marabout. Interestingly, the Marabout in Senegal, especially the Tijaniyya and

Murid Sufi orders have led the resistance against the French in the 19th century. In other words, the Marabout, metonymically representing this particular form of Senegalese Islam, is the symbol of liberation from the colonizer's violence and abuse. Despite the fact that the

French were victorious over the marabouts, the latter have remained a symbol of the

Senegalese people's nationalistic pride, an issue 1 will discuss in more detail in Chapter Three of this thesis.

Marie Ndiaga's return to her Islamic roots and to this particular form of Senegalese

Islam symbolizes in the novel her overcoming of ideological and cultural internalization of

French values. It is important to understand the place of Islam in Senegalese history in order to fully appreciate the symbolism Bugul employs in her novel. It is unclear exacdy when

Islam arrived in the region; however, the first known Muslims were reported to have been there in the sixteenth century among the Wolof and the Sérères.38 The Qadiriyya brotherhood was the first to be disseminated in West Africa by Berber merchants and missionaries who performed miracles by which they enticed local populations to adopt them as spiritual guides in the Middle Niger bend and all the way south to the Ghanaian coast in the seventeenth century.39 ln the nineteenth century, the jihad of Umar bin Said al-Futi,

38 Cheick Tidiane Sy, La confrérie sénégalaise des mourides, Biarritz: Présence Africaine, 1969,35-37. 39 Aziz Batran, The Qadiriyya Brotherhood in West Africa and the Western Sahara: the life and times of Shaykh al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (1729-1811), Rabat, Maroc: Publications de l'Institut des Études Africaines, 2001,44-46. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 33

muqaddim of the Tijaniyya Sufi order, turned states in the upper Senegal and Niger River areas into Islamic institutions, which established the pre-eminence of the order in the region.40 Following the colonial conquest at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the traditional social order collapsed and Sufi orders provided an alternative way to social organization, especiaUy to caste groups of the popula tlon. lik-e saves.1 41

The novel's use of Sufi imagery symbolism and ideas goes beyond this one paraUel however, and infuses the entire text. In addition to how Marie Ndiaga's decolonization is symbolically represented as a spiritual Sufi journey, other Sufi elements are essential to understanding the novel, for example, initiation rituals, attachment to a spiritual master, the purifying retreat or "khalwa," and the practice of Islamic rites.

Firstly, the initiation rituals and attachment to a mentor are shown through the

Marabout. The protagonist meets the Marabout, an older man, who has remained the same as before she left the country. He belongs to the Mouride sufi order (53) and has no name.

AlI we know about him is that he has many wives and has a faithful disciple.

On venait chez le Marabout pour toute sorte de services. Il était particulièrement réputé pour sa générosité, ses dons de guérisseur, ses qualités de médiateur, son aptitude à ramener la quiétude dans les âmes tourmentées et son charme. (113)

40 For more detaiI, see David Robinson, La guerre sainte de al-Hajj Umar: le Soudan Occidental au milieu du XIXe siècle, Paris: KarthaIa, 1998 ; and Madina Ly-TaII, Un Islam militant en Afrique de l'Ouest au XIXe siècle, la tijaniyya de Saiku Umar Futyiu contre les pouvoirs traditionnels et la puissance coloniale, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1991. 41 Leonardo VillaI6n, Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995,60-71. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 34

The Marabout is thus introduced to the reader as a charismatic spiritual guide with mystical powers. In his discussion of the marabout-disciple relationship in Senegal, Leonardo Villal6n says of the popular perception of marabouts:

An individual's fate is in manyways tied to the efficacy of the marabout(s) with whom he or she associates. Consequendy, relationships with marabouts are crucial components of people's strategies for advancement, or indeed, at cimes surviva1.42

It is through the description of the Marabout's disciple in the text that the Sufi doctrine of

"rabita," or bonding of one's heart with the shaykh, is introduced. In the following passage,

Bugul describes the Marabout-disciple relationship:

Quand j'ai rencontré Tahir, il était l'un des disciples les plus fanatiques du Marabout. Un disciple spécial. Sa tâche consistait à être au service de ce dernier chaque seconde de sa vie. Il ne parlait pas, sauf quand le Marabout le lui demandait; il n'avait pas d'amis, il ne plaisantait pas, ne riait pas. A chaque instant de sa vie, il était prêt à servir le Marabout. Il faisait preuve d'un don de soi qui allait jusqu'au renoncement. (111)

Tahir came years ago from his home village to seek treatment from the Marabout for his mental illness, and attached himself to the Marabout as his disciple. Therefore, Tahir has complete faith in his master, whose miraculous healing power saved him. Bugul describes

Tahir as someone who has completely surrendered his will and being into the hands of his master. Tahir has abandoned friends and the fun of this world to devote himself exclusively to his Marabout. This spiritual exercise, which Paul Jürgen described in a study of the

Naqshbandi SuG. order, will be instrumental in freeing the protagonist from her colonized and impure state. Jürgen writes:

The relationship between master and disciple is characterized by 'the rabita of love' and the willingness of the murid to accept the spiritual interference (tasarrufat) of that which or the one he wishes for (murad); 'in the spiritual realm, man's true travel which is another expression for that kind of servitude to God which is reserved for the select, is only possible when the murid and the murad, and this means the guiding one and the guided one, have been closely joined, as in marriage, by the loving bond. This loving bond is the means to transfuse the mystical states of the shaykh into the adept and a means to transform oneself into a receptacle for the divinely emanating energy (faid).43

When Marie Ndiaga visits the Marabout, they share ideas and a bond develops, which in the end of the novel, will culminate in marriage. Marie Ndiaga, who was educated in an urban setting and had lived in Paris for many years with a French man, marries a Marabout over twenty years older than her who is already married to several wives. This union happens without warning in the text, and with no explanation, as if it were a mystical act.

Secondly, this principle can be seen as linked to the Sufi notion of "suhbat," or companionship, which is also presented in the novel as a bond between Marie Ndiaga and the Marabout. They spend a lot of cime together, as the following example of Marie Ndiaga's visit to his home shows:

Il ne voulait jamais me laisser partir. Et cela me permit d'apprécier encore plus la façon dont il résolvait les problèmes des gens. Il m'associait à tout ce qu'il faisait, à tout ce qu'il disait, me prenait à témoin de tout. Quand il arrivait un mom~nt où nous étions seuls, il me posait des tas de questions. Il

s'intéressait à tout et n'avait aucun préjugé. Ce fut ainsi qu'avec lui, je repris le chemin du purgatoire. Le Marabout me permit de me dévoiler, de m'expliquer, de parler de tout un cheminement intérieur que j'étais seule à vivre. Je n'avais jamais espéré rencontrer en ce monde quelqu'un avec qui je pouvais autant communiquer. Il me donna confiance en lui, en moi-même, en Dieu, en l'univers. En arrivant au village, je ne pensais pas retrouver le Marabout, je pensais retrouver la Mère. Il me permit de la retrouver, de la découvrir, de l'aimer, de la reconnaître. Le ciel d'hivernage au-dessus menaçait continuellement. L'air sentait l'eau. Et Dieu exauça le souhait. (113)

In a number of ways, therefore, Marie Ndiaga is presented as sharinga special bond with the

Marabout. For example, when Marie Ndiaga first meets the Marabout, they connect at a spirituallevel. Her admiration for the man is obvious. "Le Marabout est superbe," she thinks to herself. Most importantly, the communication between them is special and beyond words.

"Et puis, lui et moi, nous semblions entamer une communication qui semblait dépasser ce contexte." (107) This same communication without words is described by Jalal al-Din al-

Rumi in his Mathnawi:

The rational spirit (the Logos) is (coming) to the mouth for the purpose of teaching: else (it would not come, for) truly that speech hath a channel apart: It is moving without noise and without repetitions (of sound) to the rose gardens beneath which are the rivers. o God, do Thou reveal to the soul that place where speech is growing without letters.44

The communication between people who are inspired is silent. The Sufi does not need to speak for communication occurs beyond the senses.

Furthermore, Marie Ndiaga identifies the Marabout with feelings of hope. The road to the Marabout's home is described as being filled with hope: "le long du chemin de sable

qui menait chez le Marabout, comme le tunnel de l'espoir, de l'espérance." (112)

Interestingly, the village where the Marabout lives is called Darou Rahmane, which in Arabic means "the land of the Very Merciful." This man which she identifies with hope and with whom she begins an extra-sensory communication becomes the way to healing her damaged self. Marie Ndiaga is damaged because she has lost her roots, has tumed away from her culture, only to be rejected by the whiteness she was seeking. Her self-esteem and her sense of self-worth were destroyed during her relationship with Y. Gradually, Marie Ndiaga will

"take the wird" or become a disciple of the Marabout.45 This special relationship will culminate in their marnage. This marnage itself is extraordinary. One reason for this is that it is announced to Ndiaga's mother by the village news bearer, not even by the bride and groom. This implies that it was agreed upon between the Marabout and Ndiaga secretly at fust and then announced to the family. One could easily draw an analogy between the baya or pledge of allegiance which the aspiring disciple makes to the master and the marnage which Ndiaga contracts with the Marabout.

Another Sufi element in the text is the pious retreat or khalwa, a process during which Sufi initiates isolate themselves from the outside world in order to attain a certain level of spiritual elevation through detachment from the material world through fasting,

45 Aziz Batran explains the tenn wird: "Etymologically the word wird (plur. Awrad), according to al Shaykh Sidi al-Mukhtar, was derived from the Arabie wurud al-mawrid, which meaÎls flocking to a watering place. Like thirsty animaIs that flock to a water hole to quench their thirst, the murids too take the spiritual wird to arrive at the highest mystical goal of nearness to Allah. Being a means and a way to God, the wird becomes itself sacred." (227) Traoré MA thesis ©2005 38

meditation, and solitude. In Cendres et braises, Marie Ndiaga steps into her "khalwa" from the moment she enters her bedroom in her mother's house:

Revenir à la Mère, revenir aux origines, revenir aux sources des choses, revenir dans l'environnement, revenir dans l'atmosphère, revenir au familier, revenir pour la confrontation. J'avais aménagé une petite pièce à côté de la chambre de la Mère. Chaque pièce avait un lit, des lits anciens de la grand mère jusqu'aux matelas en pailler. La Mère aimait rappeler les prières de Mame Baba Ndao de Fass Mame Baba ... Un aménagement sommaire avait permis que je m'installe dans la petite pièce ... Je passais pratiquement tout mon temps allongée dans la petite pièce ... De la petite pièce, j'entendais tout ce qui se passait dans la cour, jusqu'au moment où quelqu'un demandait: Et Marie Ndiaga .... Parfois une tête osait se montrer dans l'embrasure de la porte de la petite pièce; mais il faisait si sombre à l'intérieur; je ne tirais jamais les rideaux, je n'ouvrais jamais la fenêtre. (35-37)

Marie Ndiaga will then seek solitude, while observing the world from herwindow. She will not associate with anyone except the neighbour's wife, Anta Sèye, to whom she will confide her story. Anta as a caretaker and a listener, in this sense, is necessary to the "meditation"

Marie Ndiaga engages in by reflecting onher adventures in France. Her room is small, dark, and the furnishing is scarce. The description of Marie Ndiaga's room fits with the description of "khalwa" by Shaykh Sidi al-Mukhtar, the leader of the Qadiriya order in West

Africa and member of the Kunta family, translated from Arabic by Aziz Batran:

It must be about a fathom in height and only wide enough to accommodate a single person. The murid must lock himself therein, having no access to the world outside. The khalwa must be cleansed of defilement and purged of filth. The murid must not leave it except for a human necessity. Nothing but nearness to Allah is to be sought inside it.46

The "khalwa" is also a means of detaching oneself from sensual desires and enslavement by the love of the world. Marie Ndiaga stays in "khalwa" in order to detach herself from her love for the colonizer. Just as the love of the world destroys Sufi spirituality, love for the colonizer was destructive to Marie N diaga.

The marriage of Marie Ndiaga to the marabout thus symbolizes liberation from colonization in two aspects: First, as a Mouride, the marabout is a symbol of Senegalese nationalism and of resistance to French colonialists. Shaykh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride order was viewed with suspicion by the French administration and exiled to

Gabon and later to Mauritania. In the novel, the Marabout therefore stands as the heir of

Amadou Bamba and the fear his movement inspired in the French. Second, as a Westernized and educated woman, when Marie Ndiaga chooses to marry an old man who was not educated in French schools and who already has several wives, she is rejecting Western expectations for women.

It has been established that Cendres et braises, Ken Bugul through a metaphorical discussion of colonialism and decolonization, takes us on a joumey through a form of Islam particular to Senegal: the mouride order. In Comme le bon pain, Mariama Ndoye also presents us with a form of Islam typical of West Africa, which 1 shall now discuss in Chapter II of this thesis. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 40

ChapterIII

Comme Je bon pain :

Between Islam and traditional religion

The nove! Comme le bon pain, published in 2001, figures among recent literary production by Senegalese women, almost forty years after Senegal gained its :independence from French rule. Like other works of Senegalese literature, ftlm and art, Comme le bon pain is highly infused with the Islamic religion. As the dominant religion of the country it has had tremendous impact on the secular life of Senegal. In traditional and modem creative modes of expression, Islam is often manifested in the fOrill and subject matter of artistic productions. Literary scholar Mbye B. Cham in his article "Islam in Senegalese Literature and Film," identifies two sets of attitudes among Senegalese writers and artists in their reaction to Islam. On the one hand are those who view Islam as "the only legitimate and effective vehicle for the integration of the individual and society."47 On the other hand, are the artists who present Islam as a colonial import and consequently as an obstacle to the

individual and to society's fulfillment. Between the two extremes, Cham identifies artistic productions that accept the basic tenets of Islam while often indicting religious charlatans and expressing reverence anœbr distrust of holy men and institutions. The study of literature as a source of information on religious beliefs is part of a larger movement in the field of anthropology. Literary fiction, in particular, has often attracted anthropologists interested in obtaining ethnographic information on "native" culture and religions. They came to consider certain creative works as reliable sources for ethnography, and identify ethnographic fiction as a genre. Anthropologist Elizabeth Femea defines it as the following:

What exacdy is an ethnographic novel? It is a text, like other literary texts, that in the course of presenting a fictional story creates a setting (or physical and social context), characters (or people), plot and action that the reader judges to be authentic in terms of particular cultural, social, or political situation portrayed. If the reader judges the text to be authentie, he or she then not only will accept any messages explicitor implicit in the text itself but will also find information about matters outside the text itself: matters of love and death, the appropriate conduct of life, and the proper direction of culture and society. One must also make the distinction between an ethnographic novel, written by an outsider about an Other, and an ethnographic novel written by an artist from within the culture. The latter genre has been referred to as the auto-ethnographie novel. 48 .

For a novel to be ethnographic, it must be set in realistic social, cultural and political contexts in such a way that the reader recognizes reality through the text. Not only does

Comme le bon pain by Senegalese writer Mariama N doye fit weIl within the corpus of works where Islam plays a fascinating role but it could also be read as an ethnographic novel where

48 Elizabeth Femea, ''The ease ofSitt Marie Rose: An Ethnographie novel from the modem Middle East," Literature and Anthropology, Eds. Phillips, Dennis, and Wendell, Lubboek: Texas Teeh University Press, 1989. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 42

. the author does not shun subjectivity and rnvolvement in the drama of the story. This chapterwill explore ways in which Islam is presented in the novel reading it as an ethnographic novel. 1 will attempt to address following questions: How can the text make us think about Islam as practiced in Senegal? What does the text convey about the author's attitude towards this religion?

The plot and characters of this story reflect accurately today's Senegalese social and cultural context. The protagonist Bigué is forty years old, married for the past 15 years to

Atou, a medical doctor. Their relationship is a happy one and Bigué is proud of her successful marriage, despite the fact that they have not been· able to have children. The news of her husband's second marriage with his cousin Ndoumbé is aIl the more shocking to

Bigué when she learns that the new wife is already pregnant with her husband's child. In addition, her mother-in-Iaw -- who never approved of Bigué's marriage because the latter belongs to the caste of the griots -- is supporting the second wife. Bigué finds some comfort in listening to stories of other women and friends who have similarly been victims of male infidelity. However, the pain of Atou's second marriage is difficult for her to bear and Bigué seeks refuge in her five daily prayers and in fasting during Ramadan. She even travels to

Niger with her aunt to consult with a marabout who tells her that her co-wife will die. Bigué continues her studies in medical school, spending more time on campus to escape the presence of Ndoumbé who has moved in with her. Ndoumbé dies during the delivery ofher child, but her newbom son survives. Meanwhile, Atou's mother has to face her own Traoré MA thesis ©2005 43

husband's second marriage to her young niece, Fanta, whom sheraised herself. Atou is shocked to see how his own mother reacts to his father's polygyny and this prompts him to admire his wife's reaction to his own second marriage. In the end of Comme le bon pain, Bigué, who is raising Ndoumbé's son, becomes pregnant and eams her medical degree. Atou, delighted with his wife's long-awaited pregnancy, decides to sign a monogamy contract with her in court. Bigué gives birth to a daughter that she names Ndoumbé.

Reading this as an ethnographie novel, the structure of the text reinforces the writer's message àbout today's Senegalese society. The ethnographie eharacter of the novel in particular is, 1 suggest, a narrative strategy aiming at making the stories of women seern more authentie and therefore more compelling to the reader. As an ethnographie text, the novel calls for serious consideration of the issues presented, and presses the reader to listen for a specifie message about the condition of women in Senegal. The text is addressed to the reader "vous", as in a personalletter, whieh is a strategie attempt to make the reader an involved agent in the story. Ndoye is here hinting at an epistolary style where the addressee is the reader. Moreover, the text contains the stories of many women, who reeount them in their own words. It first seems that the protagonist is telling us her life story as she would in an ethnographie interview, but also that the other women are giving individual interviews.

Though the explicit thernes and discussions are about male infidelity, polygyny and sexuality, the text is providing us with ethnographie information about the eonduet expected of married women, gender roles and social classes. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 44

Comme le bon pain, as an ethnographie novel whose author lives within the culture, is written with a subjectivity that is crucial to understanding Islam as practiced in Senegalese society today. Through a series of social changes, Islam came to occupy an increasingly important place in the lives of West Africans, not only a psychological level, but also in social and political spaces. Aeeording to historian of West Africa David Robinson,

Orientalist bias has impeded the understanding of Islamic realities in West Africa.49 The

Orientalist approach, with its foeus on the study of Arabie culture and language, has denied the authenticity of African Islam. Robinson's advocacy for an approach to Islamic reality in new spaces, such as Africa, is innovative and breaks with the Orientalist tradition of focusing on sacred Arabie texts and on Arabie culture. In fact, the way in which Africans have appropriated Islam and made it their own is one of the most important issues posed by the study of Islam in African literature.

Islamic elements in Comme Je bon pain

One way in whieh the Islamic religion permeates the novel Comme le bon pain is in how it is shown to be firmly rooted in the daily lives of the characters. The language, the plot, the characters' belief systems and practices show that Islam is explicitly presented as the religion that the characters embrace in order to explain events and losses in their lives.

Islamic words and expressions are at the center of language in the text. The text opens with "maachallaw," the very first word in the book, an Arabic expression that means idiomatically "by the grace of Allah." ldiomatically, in Senegal, specifically, this means that one is being grateful to God for all things that are happening in one's lif<\ that one is submitting to God's will for one's destiny. Characters greet each other with the Muslim salutation "assalamalekoum" which means "peace be upon you". In the West African context, this indicates that the characters identify strongly with Islam. People who use this greeting in West Africa are usually practising Muslims and are viewed as religious people.

Throughout the text, characters invoke God, using the word Allah in their speech. For example, Bigué finds refuge in Islam when she finds out that her husband is remarrying:

Le baume salvateur de mon coeur en détresse fut la prière. À défaut des palliatifs qui s'offraient, l'ivresse des errances sans but, le divorce, l'adultère, les débordements ou déviations sexuelles, le suicide, qui ne me convenaient pas, je me jetais à corps perdu dans l'exercice de ma Foi. La contemplation d'abord, puis la prière fervente, alors me vint la sérénité. (87)

Bigué considers different ways of dealing with the feelings of betrayal, anger, and 10ss that overwhelm her. Divorce and adultery would condemn her in the eyes of society. Loose sexual behaviour would bring into question her moral principles. Suicide would condemn her in the hereafter, according to Muslim beliefs. Bigué's Muslim convictions are strong: she believes that engaging in the above actions would signify that she is not a true believer:

manifestations de non-acceptation. Or l'Islam signifie soumission à Dieu, à Ses décrets donc à l'inéluctable. (93)

To Bigué, being a true believer means that she fee1s that she should make peace with her husband's betrayal. This is highly reminiscent of other West African women's fictional

depictions of polygamy. Mariama Bâ's famous novel Une si longue lettre is one of the well-

known works espousing the view that a woman must remain stoic in the face of ail adversity.

Bigué finds no other recourse in Comme fe bon pain but to turn to prayer, and through it, she

finds peace. Bigué begins to add surrogatory prayers to the compulsory daily ones, and soon

discovers that fervent practice of her faith brings her some comfort:

Dans ma course effrénée vers la Foi, après la contemplation vient la ferveur dans la prière, l'accomplissement fidèle et stricte de mes devoirs de croyante. Qui ignore que l'accomplissement d'un rituel crée des automatismes bénéfiques à l'oubli. L'officiant est tout absorbé par la discipline de son corps; son cœur se remet de ses émois. (91)

Through the automated motions of her body in prayer, Bigué disconnects herself from the

physical world and enters a realm of profound peace, where she can truly communicate with

God:

Je le prenais à témoin de ma foi en Lui, en la vie, lui contais mes déboires présentant mes bourreaux à Son prétoire divin. Parfois mon cœur était si plein de ferveur que les paroles ne pouvaient franchir mes lèvres, je pleurais alors non pas de ressentiment mais d'un trop-plein de Grâce que je sentais en moi. Dieu est magnifique, Il comble ceux qui s'en remettent à Lui. Il fut mon refuge le plus sm dans ces moments de doute complet. (91)

Here, the protagonist achieves a spiritual height, where she complete1y surrenders to the will

devoting herself to worshipping God will help her secure a better position in this life and in the hereafter. With a better position in the eyes of God, Bigué believes that she will receive more help from Him in return for her efforts inpleasing Him.

Further, pilgrimage to Mecca is presented in the novel as a marker of social status and as a sign of respectability. Coura, Bigué's aunt, tells the story ofhow she turned away her co-wife in her youth. Her husband's good name was tied to his tide of "el hadj" as the comments made by the co-wife's relatives show: "D'autres curieuses se sont avancées pour voir la furie dépenaillée que je suis. 'Ça! L'épouse d'El Hadj Mbaye? Non! Cet homme si distingué qui a comblé de largesses notre soeur Soda.''' (24)

Similarly, when Bigué's husband apologizes to Coura for hurting her niece, he offers to buy her a trip to Mecca for the pilgrimage (59). In West Africa, the pilgrimage to Mecca is viewed as one of the elements marking social status, along with marriage, children, and wealth. Male pilgrims who return from Mecca are always referred to as "el hadj" and women as "hajja." A woman who has completed the pilgrimage to Mecca is viewed as having achieved a higher social status than other women, regardless of her Islamic education or knowledge, and regardless of her wealth. For an oIder woman in West Africa, the status of

"hajja" means that other women will consult with her for important decisions in their life, and that she will be highly respected by ail. This connection between status and the pilgrimage is so important in most West African societies that children will not go to pilgrimage before they have been able to send their parents to Mecca. The expense of the Traoré MA thesis ©2005 48

trip is such, however, that most people never can afford it for themselves, choosing instead to send their parents to conduct the pilgrimage first. Atou's offer to pay for the pilgrimage of

Bigué's aunt to Mecca is, therefore, a powerful expression ofhis love for his wife.

Finally, the novel contains a poetic and emotional description of the Muslim congregational prayer performed every night during the holy month of Ramadan, wheil

Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset:

Allahou Akbar, les mains se lèvent au niveau des tempes dans un mouvement d'ensemble. Les non-musulmans qui passent à ce moment-là restent subjuguées par cet auguste ballet. Des corps d'hommes, de femmes, d'enfants, se dressent en même temps, se courbent d'un accord, s'agenouillent ensemble. Les regards sont fixes, les mines sereines, les dos droits, les bras vissés au corps, les vêtements amples et seyants. Une image de force tranquille et souveraine se dégage de ce monde qui prie. Elle séduit chaque année de nombreux observateurs qui adoptent l'Islam comme religion en déclarant qu'Allah seul est Dieu et que Mohamed est son envoyé. Une fois la longue prière terminée ... Je sors de la prière comme d'un sauna, lavée, épurée, éreintée mais soulagée de toute peine. (93)

This detailed description of the Muslim prayer ritual and of the admiration it creates in non-

Muslims has raised questions about Ndoye's religious motives as she writes about Islam in her nove!. In a 1995 interview, Ndoye is asked and responds about this:

Coulibaly : Dans votre livre revient fréquemment l'Islam, la Mecque. Que voulez-vous faire partager à vos lecteurs?

Ndoye: L'Islam revient dans mon livre parce que je parle d'expériences plus ou moins personnelles et je suis de confession musulmane. Ceci dit, je respecte les autres religions car toute foi vraie basée sur la recherche du bien mérite d'être vécue. J'ai fait toutes mes études, de la maternelle au bac, dans des écoles catholiques où on dispense un enseignement et une éducation de qualité. La Sainte Vierge Marie, dont le nom est mentionné dans au moins un Traoré MA thesis ©2005 49

verset du Saint Coran, est la marraine de toutes les Marie et Mariama du monde. Les Juifs ont été le peuple élu de Dieu. Je veux dans mes écrits faire partager mes émotions et non pas mes convictions religieuses ou politiques. 50

Ndoye denies proselytisation or advocacy for Islam in her work. The presence of Islam in her fiction, according to her, is simply based on her own personal experience as a Muslim, and she views all religions as meritorious ways to live one's life. However, an author often states opinions in an interview that are different from what critics see in the text. In this case, the text reveals a strong emphasis on description of Islamic rites that seem to be addressed to non-Muslim readers, possibly to give them a positive image of Islam. Further, the text shows a Muslim woman's personal participation in an Islamic congregational prayer and the spiritual satisfaction that ensues.

The novel explicitly shows that characters identify themselves as Muslims and practice Islamic rituals such as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage, as weil as hold beliefs in accordance with Quranic teachings. Even a skeptical reading of the text will show this clearly. Yet, a more careful reading of the text reveals implicit and explicit references to a belief system different from that of Islam. 1 will analyze that second belief system - African beliefs -- in the next section of this chapter.

African traditional elements in Comme Je bon pain

The fact that Africa is home to approximately a thousand cultures makes it difficult to offer a general definition of an African religion. However, scholars of African religions have chosen to emphasize the unity of African religions and what they have in common, by exploring different cultures from various regions of Africa for general observations and individual examples. This is a useful approach because it fosters a better understanding of

African cultures and religions in academic scholarship. Charles Nyamity proposes a concise definition in his book on African religion and tradition:

African religious behavior is centered mainly on man's life in this world, with the consequence that religion is chiefly functional, or a means to serve people to acquire earthly goods and to maintain social cohesion and order.sl

In his definition of the African religious worldview, Nyamity daims that the African's main focus is his or her life on earth, not the hereafter, as opposed to Chri.stianity and Islam that teach that rewards are to be received after death. Religion, therefore, serves a pragmatic

. solution to real-life problems. Another scholar of African religion, Rev. John S. Mbiti, while acknowledging the lack of written scriptures, offers the following definition of African religions:

African religions have neither founders nor reformers ... Belief in the continuation of life after death is found in all African societies, as far as I have been able to discover. But this belief does not constitute a hope for a future and better life. T 0 live here and now is the most important concem

of African religious activities and beliefs. There is litrle, if any, concern with the distinctly spiritual welfare of manapart from his physicallife. No line is drawn between the spiritual and the physical. Even life in the hereafter is conceived in materialistic and physical terms. There is neither Paradise to be hoped for nor hell to be feared in the hereafter. The soul of man does not long for spiritual redemption, or for close contact with God in the next world. 52

Consequently, it is difficult to compartmentalize religion and culture in most African worldviews because the twO are concemed with the physical aspect of present life. It

. permeates social codes of conduct, everyday behaviour and rituals, as well as one's

conception of his universe, and man's acts of worship towards God are understood with a

utilitarian and practical perspective.

Characters in Comme le bon paîn including the protagonist profess Islam as their

religion, but have not totally abandoned traditional beliefs, especially in rimes of crisis. As

Nyamity already put it, religion is viewed as a functional mean of achieving certain results in

this world and the characters in the novel embrace this worldview.

Therefore, it is not surprising that, in addition to Muslim prayers and rituals, Bigué

would turn to other ways of protecting herself against her co-wife's ill will. For example,

Bigué travels to Niger with her aunt Coura for the purpose of "attacher mon pagne", or

"tying my cloth tightly around my waist." (100) This expression is a Wolof idiom refernng to

the action of taking matters into one's own hands, standing up for one's self. It can also

mean getting one self ready for a fight, or simply protecting oneself against black magic or

supernatural forces. In the context of the novel, it means that the two women are planning to request help from occult forces to deal with the marital problems Bigué is encountering.

They decide to turn to a traditional practitioner of magic. The marabout they are visiting was recommended to them by another family whose son had miraculously passed his school examination with the marabout's help. In the following passage, Bigué describes the marabout:

Vieux Amdallaye, traça avec l'index et le majeur des figures ésotériques, les effaça à maintes reprises pour en tracer d'autres. Il comptait de temps en temps des cases et poussait un rire guttural qui nous glaçait ... Ce dernier après beaucoup de paroles entrecoupées de noms de prophètes connus et inconnus de nous, et de paroles véhémentes adressées à des êtres invisibles, effaça ses hiéroglyphes et sortit une sacoche rougie par ce qui semblait être du jus de colas, de sous son matelas; il Y reversa le sable, le ficela solidement et le remit où il l'avait pris. Alors seulement il se racla la gorge: -J'ai vu deux femmes successivement enceintes du même homme ... L'une verra son enfant. L'autre pas ... Elles sont en batailles. La plus forte l'emportera... La meilleure victoire est celle où l'adversaire ne peut se relever. Il est impotent ou mort (63-64).

Gld Amdallaye, whose name ironically is local rendering of the Arabic "al-hamdulillah"

(praise God), talks to invisible beings, while drawing mystical signs on the sand. In the end, he informs Bigué and her aunt that Bigué and her co-wife will both become pregnant but that one of them will die. Though in his formulas he mentions the names of known prophets of Islam, he also inc1udes names of prophets Bigué does not know. At the end of his reading, Amdallaye asks for hair, nails, pieces of c10thing belonging to the Atou and

Another striking example of Bigué's adherence to a different belief system than Islam is her explanation of her infertility. Bigué has been tested and examined by countless doctors, unsuccessfully. When she turns to the fortune-tellers, she is always told about a genie-husband who wants to keep her to himself:

Il Y figurait toujours un mauvais génie. Il était amoureux de moi, pas bête l'autre! et jaloux de mon homme, cela s'entend. Hors de question de m'en débarrasser, il me protège des maléfices d'autrui, il les déjoue, les renverse, les casse comme des canaris. Mieux il les retourne à l'envoyeur. Il faut plutôt m'en faire un allié, lui offrir des calebassées de lait caillé, des poulets rouge couleur huile de palme, des beignets et de la bière de mil. Il est païen comme nombre de génies je pense. De plus je ne dois pas avoir de relations sexuelles avec Atou la nuit du jeudi au vendredi car mon époux-génie me sollicite alors. Si Atou s'obstine à lui disputer la place, il le rendra impuissant ou le tuera, riens moins que cela. (71)

Her invisible husband, the genie, is not a Muslim, because he drinks the traditional beer made with millet. In West Africa, the distinction between Muslims and non-Muslim societies is first made by the alcohol consumption habits of people. In Mali for example, the

Bambaras who refused to convert to Islam were called "drinkers of millet beer" because that is what made them recognizable from the Muslims. Muslims who drink in West Africa are viewed as committing a serious offence in society. Bigué suggests in the text that the genie may be pagan. The invisible husband visits Bigué for sexual relations every Thursday, a day on which her human husband Atou is not allowed to touch her and must dress in white. It is interesting to note that Atou and Bigué abstain from sex on Thursday nights - the nights the genie visits Bigué --, and that Bigué gives an offering of beer to the genie. These actions by Traoré MA thesis ©2005 54

the protagotÙst and her husband show that they both adhere to a belief system distinct from

Islam while also followinga number of Muslim practices.

In another instance, during a trip to India, Bigué expresses a distinctive belief in

God. She views God as being present inside everything, even in the Virgin Mary, a be1ief shunned by orthodox Islam:

Devant Mahim Church, les cantiques s'élèvent, les fidèles embrassent les pieds de la Vierge, auguste dame vénérée sous toutes les latitudes. Je les rejoins, Dieu est partout. Galasha Mosque, les musulmans y accèdent par une digue de plusieurs centaines de mètres pour jeter des poignées de pétales de roses sur le saint, qui, sagement couché, écoute leurs doléances pour les transmettre au Tout-Puissant; j'en suis. (78)

Bigué does not seem to view the Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary, or the intercession of an unknown Muslim saint as being contradictory to being a good Muslim. '(God is everywhere," she says. In Islam, the Virgin Mary is held in high regard because she was the mother of the prophet Jesus, according to the Qur'an. The divinity of Jesus is denied by orthodox Islam and the veneration of Mary as his mother and as an intercessor is frowned upon. The Qur'an contains injunctions against the two practices, viewing them as sinful because of the implied association of other divinities with God. Although she is not denying her Muslim identity, Bigué is readily embracing beliefs from other religions.

These views held by Bigué and other characters in the text are complemented by the presence of traditional beliefs about witchcraft and protection against the evil eye. For example, on the day that Ndoumbé is moving into Bigué's home she receives advice from her cousin on how to protect herself from her co-wife: Traoré MA thesis ©2005 55

Bigué, tu es encore nue à l'heure qu'il est! T'es-tu au moins enduite de safara, l'eau lustrale du vieux Tine et celle de Marne Ida? Tu n'as pas oublié de te rincer la bouche avec celui de Serigne Bass ainsi seules des paroles d'or sortiront de tes lèvres. Voici l'encensoir pour la poudre anti sorcier et anti-poisse. Auparavant, aide-moi à soulever le pied du lit pour y placer le talisman qui doit rendre N doumbé lourde et endolorie tant qu'elle se trouvera dans ta demeure. (115-116)

In order to deal with the immediate and practical problem of facing Ndoumbé and her family, Bigué's cousin does not advise her to pray to Allah, nor to use Islamic rituals - rather her recommendations are purely rooted in traditional beliefs. Ointments blessed by local sufi saints, anti-witchcraft incense, and a talisman to be hidden under Bigué's bed are all part of the cousin's recommendations.

Another striking example of traditional beliefs is the one concerning pre-destination later in the novel. When Ndoumbé consults with a marabout concerning her future as

Bigué's co-wife, she is told that she has to give the offering of a sheep in order to escape death. This way of trying to change one's fate is in keeping with anthropologist Robin

Horton's pattern of African religious thought which he defines as follows:

In work after work, we find that explanation, prediction and control are the overriding aims of religious life. People wànt a coherent picture of the realities that underpin their everyday world. They want to know the causes of their fortunes and misfortunes in this world. They want to have sorne way of predicting the outcomes of their various worldly projects and enterprises. They want, above all, to have the means of controlling events in the space-time world around them.53

Following Horton's logic, Africans want to control their fate, by predicting it and by taking actions that will thwart bad outcomes. llis is evident in the novel's plot. Ndoumbé is told to sacrifice a sheep for her safety, but she laughs in the marabout's face, not believing his advice. The marabout, perplexed by Ndoumbé's indifference, reflects on the fact that her death may be predestined: "On ne peut rien contre le destin. Peut-être Ndoumbé est-elle arrivée au terme de sa vie terrestre; car il faudra bien que le sang coule. Ce sera le sien ou celui d'un gros belier." (129) Here, there is the notion of an offering or the sacrifice of a live ram. In African traditional religion, sacrifices to spirits or Gods are used to divert their attention or to obtain special favors from them in retum. The marabout advises N doumbé to give the offering in exchange for her life.

Ndoye's attitude towards Islam

What is so striking in Comme le bon pain is that this traditional belief system is not perceived to be antithetical to Islam. The coexistence of Islam and African traditional beliefs is not a new theme in West African women's literature. In Le Fort maudit and Princesse de Tiali,

Senegalese writer Nafissatou Niang Diallo presents Islam and African traditional beliefs as conflicting, with Islam triumphing over animistic beliefs. In her critical article on Niang

Diallo's work, Hertzberger-Fofana affirms that other women writers are less categorical in their judgment on religion, usually confusing animism and Islam or Christianity, as part of Traoré MA thesis ©2005 57

the same faith with no contradiction. 54 In the novels of Fatou Bolli (Ivory Coast), Mariama

Bâ (Senegal) and Calixthe Beyala (Cameroon), the themes of Africau religion, commonly referred to as witchcraft and magic, and Christianity or Islam, also appear.55 In Comme le bon pain, the harmonious relationship between Islam and African traditional is intriguing because the characters only identify themselves as Muslims and do not view a contradiction between belief systems known to be antithetical. In the text, Ndoye shows that the boundaries between Islam and African traditional religion are so fluid that the characters never separate themselves from their Muslim identity. The Muslim identity is affinned in the beginning of the novel as the first word is "machallaw" and the characters remain Muslim throughout the text. In the text, Muslim identity is never questioned or considered "impure" because of the convergence of the African belief system with it. Jn this sense, there is no rigid construction

of the African belief system as systematic in Comme le bon pain. The term syncretism,

therefore, although it is employed by Ndoye in the text, fails to appropriatély characterize

the interplay of the characters and their religion. The characters do not view the boundaries

between the two sets of beliefs as fixed - this is reinforced by the fact that African religions

do not have sacred scriptures that encode specifie and systematic boundaries - but rather, as

obscured and changing according to circumstances.

54 Herztberger-Fofana, 187-192. 55 See Fatou Bolli, Djigbô, Abidjan, CI: CEDA, 1977. In this novel the protagonist, Mathilde, is subject to spirit-possession and hallucination and seeks help from a traditional healer despite her strong Catholic upbringing. Mariama Bâ, Un chant écarlate, Dakar: NEA, 1981, illustrates the belief in spirits; and Calixthe Beyala, Seul le diable le savait, Paris: Stock, 1990 discusses good and bad spirits, good and evil sorcerers. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 58

For example, after Bigué unsuccessfully consults with medical doctors to remedy her infertility, she turns to traditional beliefs:

Le temps du doute passé, après tous les tests et contrôles possibles chez les hommes de science, je me tournais comme ma culture m'y invitait vers le moins scientifique pour ne pas dire l'irrationnel, la science de l'homme du peuple. À défaut de tarots, de boule de cristal ou de lecture dans le marc de café, je me faisais lire les cauris. (71)

Here, Bigué makes a clear distinction between the two ways of life: on the one hand, there are the medical sciences, and on the other hand, there are the traditional beliefs which she calls "irrational." This is crucial because Bigué, a medical student, is sharply aware that these traditional beliefs are not supported by science, yet she do es not shun them. She clèarly describes these two belief systems as being contradictory to one another. This separation, nonetheless, do es not preclude an acceptance of the two sets of beliefs by the protagonist.

They coexist, separate yet peacefully in the protagonist's mind, and according to circumstances, in this case the crisis of infertility.

Muslim characters in the text believe in the omnipotence of the Muslim God, but also take actions of their own to deal with specific problems in this life. They view these rituals, based in African beliefs,' as complementary of Islam. In the following passage, for example, Aunt Coura reassures Bigué that she will emerge victorious from her predicament with her husband:

As mentioned above, the expression "to tighten one's cloth around one's waist" is used in popular language to mean that one is preparing for a fight. In West Africa, women wear cloth that they tie around their waist, in the same way a long skirt is wom. In the event of fighting, the cloth could easily fall off, and reveal the woman's nudity. Therefore, when West'

African women prepare for a physical fight, they tighten their cloth securely around their waist to ensure that it will not come off during the confrontation. Coura informs her niece that their recourse to African traditional rituals now guarantees that God will help them because they are in the right. In what appears like two compartmentalized aspects of religious belief, the marabout's traditional mystical intervention and the Islamic God's protection are mentioned in one sentence, as compatible notions. Aunt Coura expresses a two-way highway of religiosities co-existing harmoniously. This co-existence in the text is illustrated by the interpenetration of Islamic and African traditional beliefs in a single ritual performed by the old man Amdallaye.

Bigué and her aunt Coura have traveled to Niger to consult with a marabout. They are

seeking help for Bigué, whose husband has recendy mamed a second wife. In the old man

man in bis mystical speech mentions the names of Muslim prophets, as if invoking their power for help. Yet, he also calls on unknown prophets and other invisible beings. In one ritual, he combines Islamic beliefs in the intercession of prophets, with traditional beliefs in invisible beings that interfere in human life.

Although the Muslim characters in Comme le bon pain deny the religious boundaries between Islam and African traditional beliefs, Ndoye acknowledges a parallelism of rituals.

The two sets of beliefs cohabitate harmoniously into a form of !yncretism, a term Ndoye employs in the text:

Dans un pays où le syncrétisme religieux régnait en maître, où catholiques et musulmans au moindre problème délaissaient mosquées et églises pour courir vers les sanctuaires ancestraux, dans ce méli-mélo où on ne savait plus qui est qui, prudence était plus que jamais mère de sûreté. (131)

Ndoye associates syncretism with the idea of confusion. Christians and Muslims do not know who they really are, and no one can be sure of anyone's religious identity, according to the textual logic. She indicates a dichotomy between the new religion and the old faith legated by the ancestors. Mosques and churches are not the first places where people turn when there is a problem, ancestral sanctuaries are.

The term syncretism originates from the Greek Plutarch who used it to describe the coming together of quarrelling populations of Crete in the face of a common enemy. The

connected to "mix" or "mixtrire.,,56 Syncretism as a concept was developed by Melville

Herkowits who employed it in his study of African diaspora in the New World as a means of understanding acculturation and the coming together of African and European cultures.

According to one's point of view, syncretism can be perceived as negative, since it implies a fusion, a hybridity which takes away from the purist view of religion. One of the criticism of syncretism as a concept is that every religion should be regarded as an integrated whole.

Anthropologist Sergio F. Ferreti, in his study of the Afro-Brazilian religions, proposes four forms of syncretism: separation, interpenetration (linkage), parallelism Guxtaposition), and convergence (adaptation). 57 From an objective point of view, syilcretism is not necessarily negative since it merely signifies the mingling, or the interpenetration of two cultures or religions. From a subjective point of view, however, especially from that of one of the religions involved, it may be regarded as a threat to the religion in question, since it brings to it foreign elements that deter from the religion's integrity.

Religious scholars who have studied Islam in Africa have held different opinions on the nature of Islam as practiced in the region. Vincent Monteil, in his book L'Islam noir: une religion à la conquête de l'Afrique (1980), argues that "black Islam," or Islam as practiced in West

Africa, constitutes a distinctive religion From Arab Islam, because it incorpora tes a number

56 Rosalind Shaw and Charles Stewart, "Introduction: problematizing syncretism," in Syncretism, Anti Srncretism: The polilies ofreligious synthesis, London and New York: RoutIedge, 1994, 1-26. 5 Sergio F. Ferreti, "Religious Syncretism in an Afro-Brazilian Cult House," Reinventing Religions: syneretism and transformation in Afriea and the Amerieas, eds. Greenfield and Droogers, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield publishers, Inc, 2001, 87-97. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 62

of African traditional beliefs and ritualS. 58 This view has sinc~ been challenged by local scholars, such as Bakary Sambe, who views the concept of black or African Islam with scepticism. For Sambe and other postcolonial scholars of religion in Africa, the term is an external construction resulting from French colonial administration's efforts to separate

West African Muslims from the rest of Muslim communities around the world. Colonial administration, according to Sambe, established boundaries which they imposed on populations hetween elements which they considered "pure Islam" and elements which they deemed "animism." In Sambe's view, Islam as practiced in West Africa is merely an adaptation of Islam in a specifie cultural context, not a new, syncretic religion:

Un tel fait est habituellement désigné par l'appellation « islam noir». Si d'aucuns y voient une revendication identitaire et d'autres une volonté de d'isoler les musulmans du continent du reste de la Ummah, nous le considérons tout simplement comme une expression parmi tant d'autres d'une religion monothéiste dont le génie réside dans sa malléabilité, sa capacité à se fondre dans le moule des sociétés qtÙ l'ont embrassée pour finir par se l'approprier. 59

With this in mind, how can we interpret Ndoye's attitude towards Islam? Ndoye seems to view Islam as efficient and necessary to the individual's fulfillment in this life and to social harmony. However, Ndoye's Islam is one that adapts to social circumstances. For example, polygamy should be considered as archaic and not appropriate in today's

Senegalese society, according to the text. The veiling of women is presented as extreme and

:53 Vincent Monteil, L'Islam noir: une religion à la conquête de l'Afrique, Paris: Seuil, 1980. S9 Bakary Sambe, "Islam noir: construction identitaire ou réalité socio-historique?", D'Orient et d'Occident, http://jm.saliege.comlislam.htm. Traoré MA the sis ©2005 63

oppressive for women: ''Je n'allais tout de même pas me voiler sous prétexte que quelque indélicate me regardait comme une friandise à déguster" (55-56). Furthermore, Ndoye presents African traditional religion as an equally important presence in African society today. She does not condemn it, yet does not advocate it. Ber protagonist seems to be coerced into visiting old Amadallaye, and does not listen to her cousin Binta's injunctions to use traditional amulets and talismans. According to Ndoye, all these practices do not deter from the character's "Muslimness." In Comme le bon pain African traditional religions are a fact of society, a reality of Senegalese spirituality, neither positive nor negative. Charlatans of all kind, Muslim or non-Muslims, are mocked and criticized harshly in the novel as people who exploit others in order to fulfill their own pleasure and interests.

In conclusion, in Comme le bon pain, Ndoye provides us with valuable ethnographie information about how Islam is practiced in Senegal. Characters in the text reveal a Muslim identity whose boundaries are less rigid or fixed than in the orthodox construction of Islam, as they incorporate several African traditional elements in their belief system and in their rituals. Ndoye does not portray this fotm of Islam as impure or as less authentic than Arab

Islam for example. Rather, Islam is presented in the text, as Sambe puts it, as an expression of the flexibility of the monotheistic religion of Islam in a different society.

It has been established in chapters two and three that Mariama Ndoye and Ken

women's uruverse. The very fact that the two writers are women wriring about Islam leads us to the question treated in the next chapter: What is the message that Ndoye and Bugul, as

African women and as Muslims, convey through their works of fiction? As women who express themselves publicly in an African Muslim society, how do they present their works and how can we interpret them? Traoré MA thesis ©2005 65

ChapterIV:

Towards an African Feminism:

Transgression and resistance in Cendres et Braises and Comme le bon pain

Writing as transgression: breaking the silence

Patriarchal structures in African society present several obstacles to women's self- expression. For instance, fewer women than men could become writers because fewer girls had access to education and literacy. In traditional African society, girls were raised to become wives and mothers. While boys were sent to school - even though it was done reluctandy at the beginning of the century - girls were kept at home to do household chores, or help their mothers in the field and to take care of younger siblings. 6O Furthermore, the patriarchal order in place did not allow women to express themselves in written form, which is why Mariama Bâ's Une si longue lettre (1979) was considered apioneering feminist work.61

As a woman, she dared to speak about taboo subjects such as love, polygamy, and women's feelings about them.

Following her lead, women writers emerged producing works similarly denouncing aspects of the patriarchal structures in place in their regions and in their rimes. Ken Bugul

60 Then, French secular school system was viewed with suspicion by Muslim populations in West Africa even for boys, who were traditionally sent to madrasas. See for more detail, Christopher Harrison, France and Islam in West Africa, 1860-1960, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988,57-68. 61 Bâ's novel is written in an epistolary form. It won the frrst ever Noma Award for publishing in Africa in 1980 and has since been translated into twelve languages. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 66

and Mariama Ndoye are two of them. Ndoye's narrator expresses the'importance of telling her story publicly: "Bref, devant l'innommable, je choisis de déraper en prenant la parole pour des milliers d'infortunées bâillonnées par le qu'en dira-t-on. Il est très malvenu dans nos sociétés africaines de se laisser aller, or se confier est bien la manière la plus honteuse de se laisser aller." (15) To express their emotions is viewed as a weakness, a non-respect of societal rules. African women are socially conditioned to remain stoic in the face of adversity. An 'illustration of this rule of silence among African women can be found in Ségou:

Les murailles de terre, a work of historical fiction about the Bambara kingdom of Segu and the

Traoré family by Caribbean author Maryse Condé. In the novel, Nya recalls her aunts and mother's advice before her wedding night: "Pas de cris, de plaintes, de gémissements intempestifs. Le plaisir, comme la douleur, se souffre en silence." (64)62 Any kind of emotion is deemed so private that it should never be voiced.

Speaking out through wriring or otherwise, African women are breaking the silence imposed on them by society. Ndoye is sharply aware of the judgement she will incur from members of her society, when she writes that: "Cette lourde decision me vaudra les anathèmes de femmes possessives, jalouses, occidentalisées, prétentieuses, que sais-je." (15)

The decision to write about the topic of polygamy, for example, will cause people in her society to view her as a Westeroized woman who is too protective of her husband and pretentious, Ndoye tells us.

Consequently, when a woman writer comes from a culture with a strong injunction against speaking out against societal rules, the risk she ineurs from doing so influences her writing style, language, and narrative strategies.

It is obvious that the way Bugul and Ndoye shape their work is influenced by this culture of silence for women. Ken Bugul, whose real nanie is Mariétou Mbaye, was forced by her publisher Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines to adopt a pseudonym to publish her work.

Mbaye is the daughter of a marabout, which made it controversial for her work to discuss woman's sexuality, drugs and other taboos in African society. The use of a pseudonym allowed Bugul to have more freedom in her writing style.

Ken Bugul means in Wolof "nobody wants" and is a name usually given to children born after several stillboms. This name is given to the live child as a protection from spirits who may attempt to kill it. According to Wolof mythology, children born after stillbirths are the reincarnation of ancestors and may die unpredictably. In order to break the cycle of death, the parents call these children by a name that signifies rejection. By doing this, the mother pretends to reject symbolically her child in the hope that the supernatural forces will let him or her live. As such, this pseudonym is highly symbolic. The writer Ken Bugul adopts it as a protection against her society's injunction of silence against women. It implies that

some before her may have wanted to express themselves publicly unsuccessfully (a form of

"still birth" of their voice), and that Ken Bugul is protected by her name. This pseudonym was also interpreted differently by critics. For example, Laura Charlotte Kempen in her Traoré MA thesis ©2005 68

critical work on Bugul's novel Le Baobab fou, Vlews the pseudonym as a fonu of transgression. The name Ken Bugul, she writes:

also reflects, at least in English, a gender ambiguity. One can assert that, as an educated woman who has spent a great deal of cime abroad, she was familiar with the masculinity of this name in English. With this in mind, one couId argue that she purposefully reclaimed the patriarchal realm of the word by accessing writing via assumed masculinity.63

During an interview she gave Amina magazine in 2001, Bugul acknowledged that her writing style was influenced by the silence imposed on one's emotions and opinions not only as a woman but also as a citizen of Third-World Africa:

Le livre est à l'image de la réaction d'un Africain qui a tout encaissé. Moi aussi j'ai encaissé et au fur et à mesure la violence m'envahissait. C'est le résultat du trop-plein. En Afrique lorsque l'on réagit, c'est toujours violent. Cette violence réflète aussi mon impuissance en tant que petit individu à pouvoir changer les choses.64

Bugul views any reaction against this injunction of silence and this social expectation of stoicism as an act of violence. Much as repressed and unexpressed feelings end up exploding in the fonu of violent acts, for women instructed to remain quiet, writing is indeed, a violent act of rebellion against social nonus.

Ndoye's narrative was also affected by this injunction of silence. Heteroglossia, or muItiplicity of voices, is a strategy which Ndoye uses to circumvent the mIe of silence. She

63 Laura Charlotte Kempen, Mariama Bâ, Rigoberta Menchu and Pos/colonial Feminism, New York: Peter Lang, 2001,68. 64 Renée Mendy-Ogoundou, "Ken Bugul: Quand La Folie ou la mort nous guettent", Amina 377 (Septembre 2001),42. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 69

shifts from several voices of dominated women to the voice of the dominant, namely Atou the polygamous husband, and tante Sabel, his mother. Throughout the novel, the voices of several women victims of male oppression tell their stories. In the last chapters, it is the tum of Atou, who was presented as the oppressor, and of tante Sabel, his mother who encouraged Atou's oppressive behaviou1:, to speak. The dominant group, in the process, gains access to the crucial experience of the dominated, namely Bigué and the other women and finally hear the voices of the dominated. This strategy allows Ndoye to express freely women's grievances before adopting a male's point of view to advocate a change in existing

When Atou sees how his own mother Sabel reacts to his father's marnage to a second wife, he begins to empathize with women's feelings: "Atou se demande comment une belle et jeune femme comme Sis si a pu rester sereine quand son mari la trompait ouvertement, la dédaignant au profit d'une autre. Où a-t-elle puisé la force de subir sans broncher, sans insulter qui que ce soit, sans se laisser mourir d'inanition, sans se confier au pretnler intrigant venu? Et surtout sans se jeter dans les bras d'un profiteur ?" (172) Gradually, Atou the polygamous husband, transfonns into an adversary to polygamy: "Atou se dit qu'il doit être un précurseur. Cette histoire de polygamie n'a plus de sens de nos jours. Sa propre mère en devient folle." (184)

65 These narrative strategies to circumvent the injunction of silence are described by Deirdre Lashgari in "Introduction: To Speak the Unspeakable: Implications ofGender, Race, Class, and Culture," Violence, Silence, and Ange: Women 's Writing as Transgression" Charlottesville: University Press ofVirginia, 1995. Traoré MA the sis ©2005 70

Ndoye's strategy here is give voice to a male character who opposes polygamy after observing the damage it can cause. His own mother, who stood as the bastion of tradition and as the perpetuator of polygamy, experiences pain and hurt because of it. The anti- polygamy statement of Comme le bon pain is strengthened because it is Atou, the formerly polygamous man, who decides to oppose it publicly. The voice of the male character also frees Ndoye of the burden of speaking out against polygamy as a woman.

In Cendres et braises, Bugul also shapes her narrative to circumvent the injunction 'of silence. Marie Ndiaga is referred to as insane by members of her community, and is later hospitalized in a psychiatrie institution. Insanity becomes a strategie characteristic of the protagonist which Bugul creates. By making Marie Ndiaga insane, Bugul is sharply aware that she is opening the door to free expression for her protagonist. The protagonist is painfully aware of the challenge of speaking out for women as the following passage shows:

(les femmes) devaient subir toutes les situations, les sermons étaient bons pour elles, les conseils, les reproches. Et incapables de s'exprimer librement pour la plupart d'entre elles, elles encaissaient jusqu'à la névrose. Pour se faire écouter ... Sinon pour pouvoir parler librement, elle doit être folle. Et elle n'est plus écoutée. Alors que faire ? .. Parlons. Question de vie et de mort. (136)

Insanity could be defioed as a condition of being out of touch with the real world, or with

the normal functioning of humans. It could also mean, being unaware of one's actions, or

being aware of one's actions but unable to detetmine whether they are right or wrong.

differ~t periods. In mid-century and postwar works, insanity was often connected to manlessness.66 Because the unmarried woman represents a threat to established social structures, they are often portrayed as "abnormal" or "sick." "Healthy" femininity rests on marriage and motherhood, both of which were the foundations of a "healthy" family and therefore of a "healthy" community.

The use of insanity in Bugul's novel is instrumental in delivering her transgressive message. Marie Ndiaga is perceived as being "insane" by members of her community, which frees her from societal expectations for "normal" human behaviour. First, the fact that Marie

Ndiaga is insane frees her from any responsibility for her actions and for her words, as weil as from structures that crush the individual woman. She is therefore free to speak and think about what she wants, regardless of whether this is considered unacceptable in her society.

Second, Marie Ndiaga, as a mad person, has access to certain truths or prophesies which normal people do not have. Historicaily, people who were perceived to behave in an abnormal way were seen as being possessed by spirits. For instance, the European witch hunts in the Middle Ages considered abnormal actions or words as signs of spirit possessions and of evil, and persecuted people who exhibited them. In West Africa, certain traditional societies considered madness as a sign that a person had access to certain forms of knowledge of supematural origin. Today, the positive connotation of madness, as in mad

66 See Marta Caminero-Santagelo's treatment of madness in women's literature in The Madwoman Can 't Speak: Or Why Insanity is Not Subversive, London: Cotnell University Press, 1998; and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attie: the woman writer and the nineteenth-eentury literary imagination, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. Traoré MA the sis ©2005 72

scientists for example, also points to people who are abnormally intelligent or knowledgeable. If one espouses this last connotation of madness, one can see how Marie

Ndiaga becomes empowered by her "insanity." It allows her to daim a power of prophesy or an awareness which normal people do not have. Against Caminero's argument that madness deprives women of power, 1 propose that Marie Ndiaga's credibility is all the more enhanced and confinned by her "insanity."

It is undeniable that women are marginalized in most mainstream religions induding

Islam, which in tum affects women's ability to become religious leaders, their access to education, and their role in institutional structures. In Islam, public roles such as leading prayer, giving sermons, and teaching religious concepts have traditionally belonged to men.

Women pray in the back of the mosque, and are not obligated to attend public prayers. This interpretation of women's place in public Islamic roles has recently been challenged by some

Muslim feminists. Amina Wadud, an American professor of Islam and of religion, decided to lead a Friday prayer service in New York on March 18,2005. The service took place in an

Anglican church because mosques refused to host it, and an art gallery who had agreed to host it received a bomb threat. Opposition raged throughout the Muslim world and most

Islamic leaders condemned Wadud's act. 67

ln this context, the very fact that Bugul and Ndoye write about Islam is revealing:

First and foremost, it is a transgression of the rule of silence that women are to follow in a

Muslim African society. Women are not usually educated enough about Islam to be able to discuss it, let alone to question its doctrines. Questioning the religiously given right for

Muslim men to marry more than one wife is exacdy what Ndoye does in Comme le bon pain.-

Her protagonist chooses ta discuss the taboo subject of polygamy, despite the social restrictions placed on women:

La polygamie, parlons-en : ... Actuellement, l'homme se jette souvent dans la polygamie par luxure, par lâcheté, sous l'influence de ses proches. Elle pose problème, l'amour conjugal étant par essence exclusiviste. A l'heure où les couples tanguent, est-il judicieux d'instaurer des ménages à trois, quatre, cinq (14).

Ndoye's protagonist analyses polygamy with her social and cultural contexts, then comes to the conclusion that, even if it was appropriate in the prophet's cime and place, it is no longer justified in contemporary Senegal. Polygamy used to be a means for widows and orphans to find proteçtion, according to the sacred text, but it is now a means for men to satisfy their desire for social acceptance, and their lust.

Furthermore, the two writers express resistance to the established male monopoly on

Islam -- Ndoye and Bugul are implicidy daiming Islam as a woman's religion, a religion where women can achieve social and spiritual status and where they can still exert some of the control they possessed in traditional African religion. For example, in Cendres et braises,

Marie Ndiaga identifies her mother and herself as Muslim women: "La Mère et moi nous sommes de la même religion. Nous sommes des musulmanes." (110) This common faith in

Islam, a form of feminine solidarity can be found, which transcends social and economic classes. Through Islam, Marie Ndiaga daims a social and spiritual status which society denied her. Bugul opposes traditional roles of women with the mystical achievement that

Marie Ndiaga reaches. In one passage for instance, Bugul establishes that Marie Ndiaga does not fit onto traditional female roles: "Elle n'est pas mariée? - Non. -Elle a des enfants? -

Non. -Elle travaille? -Non. - Elle est saine d'esprit? -Non." (22) In this passage, Marie

Ndiaga who lives in the capital city imagines her mother having to answer people's questions about her daughter, and people's inference that she must be insane not to fit into the female roles in Senegalese society. A woman is supposed to be a wife, a mother, and a provider.

Marie Ndiaga is none of these, which raises the question of her sanity and mental health. It will be only when Marie Ndiaga embraces the Marabout (representing Sufism) that she achieves her society's expectations of her: she becomes a wife, which represents social status, and the partner of a religious leader, which gives her spiritual status. (190) Furthermore, by embracing Sufism, Marie Ndiaga is rejecting orthodox Islam, which Bugul fmds limiting to women. In an interview given in 1999, Bugul explains her feelings towards traditional Islam:

"L'Islam aussi me convenait par certains aspects. Mais je ne voulais pas m'abandonner dans un Islam que j'aime mais que je trouve limitatif. J'ai une vision œcuménique.,,68

Towards an African Feminism?

The transgressive aspect of the writings of Ndoye and Bugulleads to the question of whether the novel constitutes feminist fiction. For this reason, it is important for a more complete understanding of Comme le bon pain and Cendres et braises to analyze dlese novels in terms of feminist content and purpose. Feminism in an African postcolonial context, as recent theorists have demonstrated, needs to be re-adapted to the particular realities faced by

African women.69 Literary critic Donald Wehrs, in his study of "African feminist fiction," gives for example the following definition of a feminist African novel:

What is striking in the feminism of each of these novels is that it involves an unsparing critique of the sexism internal to both Western and indigenous social practices and conceptuality while nonetheless indicating, though often in reformed modes, African traditions of ethical reflection that view Western "liberation" as self-impoverishment, and Western "ethics of resistance" as both unethical and in terms of addressing what gives human life significance, dueless.70

According to Wehrs, African feminism seeks to eliminate gender discrimination in African society, yet it grounds its worldview in local values. Theoretically, the question of how

"African feminism" is different from "feminism" (or ''Western feminism") still remains at the center of debate. While sorne theorists assert that feminism is rooted in traditional indigenous African cultures, others daim that it has yet to develop into an ideology in Africa.

69 Obioma Nnaemeka, Molara Ogundipe Leslie, and Zulu Sofala are among theorists who argue that feminism in Africa is different from Western feminism. 1 discuss them later in this chapter. 70 Donald Wehrs, African Feminist Fiction and lndigenous Values, Gainesville: University Press ofFlorida, 2001, xi. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 76

Theorist Obioma Nnaemeka points to the difference between ''Western feminism" and

"African feminism":

While a zero-sum matrix and a winner-take-all reasoning govern the articulation of power in Western feminist discourse, African feminism defines power as an item that is negotiable and negotiated; it asses ses power not in absolute but in relative terms---in terms of power-sharing and power ebb and flow. While Western feminist discourse emphasizes the power grabbing that reinforces individualism, African feminist discourse foregrounds the power-sharing that underscores community and humane . 71 livmg ...

According to Nnaemeka, African feminism is, consequendy, in harmony with the community-oriented society and attempts to compromise, to negotiate and accommodate for the sake of social order.

Olabisi Aina in her article "African Women in the Grassroots," argues that African women have a history and a culture of organizing and forming associations, however, women's militancy is limited to economic independence and social benefits, while it neglects the "psychological development of the total self, whereby women would see themselves as just as capable as men are of changing the world in which they live.,,72 According to this view, feminism is still in its infancy in Africa because it fails to underline women's individuality and self-development.

Other theorists, finally, claim that "feminism" was a foreign import to the continent

and as such, that it contains elements of imperialism. Zulu Sofola in "Feminism and African

71 Obioma Nnaemeka, "Introduction," Sisterhood, Feminisms and Power, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998, IL 72 Olabisi Aina, "African Women in the Grassroots," in Sisterhood, Feminisms and Power, ed. Obioma Nnaemeka, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998,65-88. Traoré MA thesis ©2005 77

Womanhood" points to an African tradition al worldview that, far from disadvantaging women, makes them active participants in the established power lines. The oppression of women, according to Sofola, is a direct result of Western imperialism and colonialism, "for wherever the new alien powers dislodged African men from their previous positions of power, those African men would in tum grab whatever was left of power by dislodging their female counterparts from their own positions of power.,,73

These divergent views on the nature of African feminism reflect the complex tapestry of women's issues in Africa. It is therefore pertinent to explore feminism as presented by these two African women writers in Comme le bon pain and Cendres et braises.

Bugul and Ndoye both denounce the disadvantaging of women resulting from the gender- specific roles in Senegalese society. In Comme le bon pain, the roles of men and women are clearly defined. Men are the providers, and women are expected to serve them in the home, especially as sexual objects. Women who attempt to take over the role of provider are deemed to fail their marriage. Their husband's hunting instinct should be preserved by all possible means. Otherwise, he will try to satisfy it with another woman. Moreover, Ndoye challenges the traditional conception of marriage in her society. To the old conèeption of marriage in West Africa as the union of two families who enjoy mutual benefit from it,

Ndoye opposes the concept of marriage as the union of two persons based on romantic love, mutual respect, and mutual consent. Bugul also acknowledges that African society

rais es its daughters and wives to be subservient to men. As her protagonist Marie Ndiaga analyses her relationship with Y, she comes to term with her upbringing as an African women. Therefore, the two writers argue that the gender roles as created in Senegalese society place women at a disadvantage. This suggests that Ndoye and Bugul propose a feminism that brings into question these gender-specific roles.

In addition to the strong codification of gender roles that places women in a disadvantaged position, the writers also challenge society's traditional definition of womanhood. For instance, in Comme je bon pain, Bigué who has not conceived a child in her fifteen years of marriage, suffers from the stigma attached to infertility. In most African societies, a woman is ftrst and foremost expected to be a mother. When a woman is infertile, she not only is threatening the perpetuation of her husband's lineage and her own personal immortality, she is also viewed as responsible for this inability to conceive. A scholar of

African traditions explains the concept of sterility as perceived in many African communities:

Barrenness and impotence are often attributed as moral shortcomings of the person concemed. On the one hand, there is a realization that individuals thus afflicted are not as a rule personally responsible for their condition. Nevertheless, a degree of personal culpability is albeit often unconsciously, always attributed to them by the religious mentality of the commuruty.• 74

Though Ndoye does not question the importance of motherhood and childbearing, she challenges the prevalent view that women who cannot conceive are lesser women. Bigué, who is hurt by the fact that people call her « infertile », speaks out against this designation:

"Pour être mère il ne suffit pas de mettre bas comme une bête." Motherhood is not reduced to the biological function of women, the text suggests.

Beyond recognizing that there can be different models for the individual woman,

Bugul and Ndoye also advocate a universal form of women's solidarity. Bugul's text for example contains intermittent calls for women solidarity. In one passage of Cendres et Braises,

Marie Ndiaga feels guilty for being the mistress of a married man: ''Vis-à-vis de sa femme, je me' sentais fautive. Les choses ne devaient pas se passer ainsi entre femmes." (79) Women's should remain united, even if they are in love with the same man. Women solidarity should transcend every day problems, according to the text. When Marie Ndiaga is incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital, she reflects on the fate of the other women patients:

Les femmes vivaient les mêmes choses, subissaient pareillement.. La seule différence est que certaines femmes essayaient de refuser, mais si elles avaient pris conscience, c'est qu'elles avaient subi déjà ... Seulement moi je suis noire et cela change beaucoup les données, mais le problème posé reste le même pour toutes les femmes de toutes les couleurs. (158)

Marie Ndiaga believes that women experience the same kinds of oppression, regardless of their place or culture of origin. The awareness of a need for feminine solidarity, however, only comes after oppression has taken place. Bugul, through her text, demonstrates the strength and the power of resistance which women possess. After all, Marie N diaga survives Traoré MA thesis ©2005 80

the abuse, overcomes oppression and emerges stronger at the end of the novel. In the psychiatric hospital, Marie Ndiaga reflects on women's suffering and concludes: "La femme

était aggressée dans son essence même depuis le début; mais elle semblait avoir plus de résistance. Les hommes se suicidaient plus." (159) Bugul, 1 suggest, is sending a message of hope to Third-World women in particular and to all women more generally.

Ndoye's model of women's solidarity permeates her text. Comme le bon pain's plot, structure, and characters reveal a message that women undergo the same oppression and mistreatment by men, and as such, form a collective. Bigué, when talking with other women, realizes that they all suffer From the same male behaviour, namely infidelity and polygamy.

Moreover, the protagonist tums to other women who are in the same predicament for comfort. Throughout the text, female characters confide in each other about their problems and support each other with comforting words. "Nous nous retrouvions pour nous relater, les yeux mouillées, les circonstances dans lesquelles nous avions finalement perdu notre coller de corail, notre innocence puis nos illusions sur les hommes." (29)

Feminism as presented in Nodye and Bugul's novel, therefore, fits weIl Aina's and

Nnaemeka's views that it attempts to negotiate with the social order and that it primarily aims at social benefits rather than at the psychological development of the self.

Through writing, Bugul and Ndoye daim their subjectivity as African women. With most of African francophone literature being produced by men, women writers' act of writing is a re-appropriation of their own place as subject, a rejection of the place they Traoré MA thesis ©2005 81

occupied in men's writing as abjects. With tbis re-claiming of their subjectivity, Bugul and

Ndoye search for a feminine identity, for the true meaning of womanhood. In an interview,

Bugul explains the purpose of her writing as an African woman:

On veut faire croire que la femme africaine est toujours au champ ou au marché avec quelque chose sur la tête ou sur le dos. On pense qu'elle ne plaisante pas, qu'elle ne parle pas et qu'elle ne connaît rien. Mais c'est faux! J'écris contre les clichés et les idées reçues que l'on a de la femme africaine. 75

Bugul denounces the representation of African women as passive, silent, and ignorant. Her purpose in writing is to challenge the pre-conceived notions about African women by presenting them as agents and subjects with feelings, knowledge and a voice.

For instance, in Cendres et Braises, Marie Ndiaga ponders her identity as a woman:

J'étais une femme Ge le suis toujours). À travers son processus de libération la femme devient de plus en plus femme. Femme mais libérée. Faudrait-il libérer la femme ou la libération? (58)

Bugul does not dissociate feminine identity from feminine emancipation. In order to truly be

a woman, a woman must be liberated. 1bis passage suggests that the concept of woman's

emancipation needs to be freed from the preconceptions attached to it in order for more

women to embrace it. Womanhood needs to be celebrated in order for liberation to be

viewed in a positive light by African women. Bugul goes so far as rejecting the male tradition

of characterizing and defining women: "Sur quels critères l'homme se basait-il pour parler

d'intelligence à propos de la femme? C'était selon que ça l'arrangeait ou non." (90) Men's

criteria of classification and definition of women are based on their own self-interest and their own benefit, according to the text. Bugul denounces men's manipulation of women to make them dependent on men's view of them. In Cendres et braises, Y tells Marie Ndiaga that she is as intelligent as his wife, a statement that make the protagonist question his true motives. She realizes that Y wants to keep her as his mistress while making false promises of divorcing his wife. By freeing themselves of their own dependency on men -- by dependency

1 am referring not only to economic dependency but also to psychological and intellectual dependency - women will be able to shape their own definition of who they are and what they ought to be.

1bis yearning for a new concept of womanhood and a new model for African women emerges as one of the themes in the two novels. In Comme le bon pain, Ndoye questions the societal de finition of a mother: "On me disait stérile, quell mot crueL .. Pour

être mère, on n'a pas besoin de mettre bas comme une bête." (70) Bigué, who has not been able to conceive in fifteen years of marriage, is facing the judgment of her society.

Motherhood is beyond biology, according to textuallogic. Ndoye elevates motherhood to a concept that surpasses societal expectations of physically giving birth.

However, this search for the true face of womanhood is a tedious one, because a

significant obstacle stands in the way, according to Molara Ogundipe-Leslie:

The sixth mountain on the woman's back- herself- is the most important. Women are shackled by their own negative self-image, by centuries of interiorization of the ideologies of patriarchy and gender hierarchy. Her own reactions to objective problems therefore are often self-defeating and Traoré MA thesis ©2005 83

self-crippling. She reacts with fear, dependency complexes and attitudes to please and cajole where more self-assertive actions are needed.76

TIùs obstacle is inside the African woman's own mind. After believing for cen1unes that she was at the bottom of gender hierarchy, she fails to stand up for herself with the assertiveness she needs to liberate herself. The African woman's fear and dependency complexes are apparent in the two novels, as the female protagorusts negotiate their feminine identities in

society. If Bigué in Comme le bon pain is sharply aware of injustice of polygamy, she does not

. protest it openly. Instead of rejecring the polygamous system altogether, she leams to

become a participant in the game co-wives traditionaIly play. Her marriage to her husband becomes monogamous only by two tums of fate -- first, her co-wife Ndoumbé dies in

childbirth, then her father-in-Iaw marries a second wife, making Atou painfuUy aware of the

downsides of polygamy. Bigué cornes out victorious, not by her own initiative, but by

chance. Similarly, in Cendres et braises, Marie Ndiaga's caU for women solidarity and justice for

women of ail colors is in contradiction with her actions; she has affairs with married men,

participaring in the oppression of women, and is afraid of breaking away from Y, despite his

abusive behaviour.

Another important aspect of Ndoye and Bugul's wriring is the readership addressed.

Ndoye is wriring about women for women: ''Je dédie ce livre a toutes les Dames Pâtes ...

Toute femme, à la lecture de ce livre se retrouvera à l'une ou l'autre page. Ce n'est pas un hasard ...J'ai donc peint un panneau de l'immense fresque que constitue l'éternel féminin.,,77

Ndoye's dedication of her book to women who are "like bread dough" - women who manage to remain stoic and endure in the face of all adversity - does not necessarily mean that she is writing for a female readership. Obviously, the stories of the women in the novel are aIready familiar for the women she is targeting in her dedication. Ndoye seems to be writing for a wider readership, for men and women around the world, and speaking out for women who are silenced by societal rules. Her goal, as stated in the text, is to speak out on behalf of all the African women who are afraid to telling their stories. Ultimately, Ndoye hopes her novel will raise awareness about the plight of West African women. This dedication to women is an expression of the role of spokesperson Ndoye assumes.

In conclusion, a textual analysis of the two novels points to the writel:s' que st for a new moral order and a search for the self. Through the act of writing, the authors are re claiming their subjectivity, transgressing the established male monopoly over religious discourse and finally, breaking the injunction of silence to voice women's experiences and

struggles in a patriarchal society. While expressing their disagreement with practices that

disadvantage women, the writers present protagonists who go along with these practices in

their actions. Bigué becomes an active player in the game co-wives play in a polygamous

marriage. Marie Ndiaga does not dismiss polygamy completely as she finds a biological justification for the practice. As African and Senegalese women, the writers aspire for better conditions for women in their society, without, however, overemphasizing 1he individual development of their protagonist to the detriment of the existing social order. Bigué and

Marie Ndiaga both aspire to one thing in the end: meeting societal expectations. Bigué, who is marginalized because she cannot conceive, in the end emerges victorious because she becomes pregnant. Marie Ndiaga, who was stigmatized as being insane because she was not married, marries a respected religious leader. In the end, the two protagonists do not challenge but conform to their cultural and social norms. From Comme le bon pain and Cendres et braises, feminism emerges as a form of activism rooted in concepts of negotiation, accommodation, and compromise, in accordance with Nnaemeka's definition of African feminism. Nnaemeka defmes it as an attempt to negotiate, to compromise, and finally to accommodate the struggle for women's well-being with the norms of society, which is what the two protagonists enact in the text. As Ndoye said in a 2002 interview: "Une femme de bien cherche à être fidèle aux valeurs de sa société. L'endurance à toute épreuve, le courage, la noblesse de sentiments et le respect de soi-même. Il ne faut jamais perdre sa propre estime. Il faut toujours tenir compte du regard des autres.,,78 The texts therefore call for a re- definition of African feminism on its own terms, rooted in Africa's own social norms and circumstances.

Conclusion

It is true that the woman writer has found a voice, but (one may ask) what kind of voice? Are we heard? Are we not sometimes ignored? - Flora Nwapa, 1998.79

Nigerian novelist Flora Nwapa's questions are yet to be answered. What kind of voice has the African woman writer found? This question is all the more relevant in an

Islamic African society like that of Senegal. Since Islam has traditionally restricted women's raIes to the domes tic and private spheres, creative works by Muslim African women, because they enter the public sphere, should be heard for the message they contain.

In this thesis 1 have shown that through Comme le bon pain and Cendres et braises, a feminine experience of religion appears -- not only in the faith in God of the protagonists, but also in the mediation of marabouts who are manifestations of cultural hybridity and rebellion. Not only are references to Islam explicit, revealing the underlying Islamic environment and social identity of Muslim West Africa, but they are also key elements to textual interpretation. In Cendres et braises, Sufism emerges as the main manifestation of

Islamic spirituality for the protagonist. Through Sufism, Ken Bugul finds a certain freedom

of expression which orthodox Islam does not provide for a writer. Sufism, with its emphasis on compassion and closeness to God, has allowed a rich poetic production, wi~ Sufi writers

and artists expressing their spirituality in ways they couId not have done in prose. Therefore,

Bugul is continuing a Sufi tradition of artistic expression. The protagonist, a woman, despite having strayed from societal and religious norms by having an illegitimaterelationship with a married, non-Muslim man, fmds redemption in a compassionate encounter with a Senegalese

Sufi marabout. Whereas the secuIar West has betrayed her after seducing her, the Sufi nation

of Senegal has healed her by providing her with roots and identity. Just as theorist Alfred

Lopès' postcolonial subject comes to term with his her complicity with the former colonizer,

Marie Ndiaga confronts her own intemalization of French values and her own complicity with the French nation. Frantz Fanon's discussion of colonialism and of the relationship

between the black (colonized) woman and the white (colonizer) man proved particuIarly

useful to understanding Marie Ndiaga's relationship with Y. Further, Fanon's description of

the psychological impact of colonization on the colonized, especially as it relates to language,

provided an import insight into Marie Ndiaga's use of the French language. Ngugi wa

Thiong'o's theory on the use of European languages by African writers exposes a

problematic relationship between the writers and their colonial cultural legacy. As a

postcolonial writer, not only is Bugul rebelling against Westem-imposed values, she is also

rebelling against Arab-imposed forms of Islam by re-claiming Senegalese Sufism as the one

Similarly, Comme le bon pain presents Islam in its local African manifestation, infused with indigenous rites and beliefs, yet indisputably affirming its authenticity. The text treats

Islam as it is lived and experienced today by women Senegal. It underscores the fact that

Islam, in sub-Saharan Africa should not be examined in isolation from its cultural and social

context. In the two novels, references to Islam are not presented as a religious discourse but

rather as a social code, imprinted with Arabie greeting expressions, proverbs, and traditional

good manners. Although Bugul and Ndoye are not attempting a complete feminist reading

or rewriting of Islamic tradition, they are indirecdy claiming their place as active participants

in a religion that has been porttayed as excluding and marginalizing women. By making their

protagonists practice and believe in the Islamic religion, the two writers are asserting the

relevance of women's experience of religion as their own, not as borrowed spirituality.

The issue at the center of the study is not limited to the representation of Islam in

the two novels, but extends to the role of women writers in their African Islamic society and

culture. Flora Nwapa asked: "Are we heard?" This thesis has attempted to expand the

recognition of African women's writing. The very fact of writing for African women is an act

of transgression: it challenges established boundaries of geography, language, ideology,

religion, sexuality, economic and social class, historical, and literary. As a form of

transgressive speech, African women's writing identifies power structures and issues that are

critical to society. in general and to women in particular. As writers, African women express

confidence, as weil as validation and self-affirmation on the part of the woman writer. As

Muslim women, Ndoye and Bugul are also aware of the power of the "printed word", of the sacred ''Word'' in Islanllc traditions. Through their creative writing, they are contributing to a new written tradition: the stories of African women of the Muslim faith, sin cere in their experience of their religion and the transmitters of knowledge to future generations of women. On this note, it is appropriate to end this study with these words by Ogundipe-

Leslie:

Our work, writings and exhortations as women in various forms and media show that we want to end our silences and speak our truths as we know them. We wish to have power which recognizes responsibility in dignified freedom; power which positively promotes Life in aU its forms; power to remove from our path any thing, person, or structure which threatens to limit our potential for full human growth as the other half oflife's gendered reality; power to collapse ail screens that threaten to obscure our women's eyes from the beauties of the world.80

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