So Long a Silence: Rewriting the Story of Gender-Based Violence

There is something unusually tender about Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter. It is not simply a story; it is a slow, aching confession; a heart emptying itself after years of quiet endurance. Ramatoulaye writes to her friend Aissatou with the honesty of someone finally unburdening a lifetime of emotional wounds. Her pain is not loud. It does not shout for attention. Instead, it sits quietly between the lines, gentle yet unforgettable. That stillness is what makes the novel powerful, and it is the same stillness that surrounds many forms of gender-based violence today.

When I look at the conversations surrounding GBV: the purple profile pictures, the stories shared online, the emotional debates, Bâ’s book comes back to me. Ramatoulaye’s wounds are emotional, psychological, and invisible. They come from betrayal, neglect, isolation, manipulation, and rejection. These wounds cannot be stitched in a hospital ward or cleaned with antiseptic. They live inside the heart, settling in places where medical tools cannot reach.

Yet when we talk about GBV today, the focus is often limited to physical violence. Worse still, the conversation is frequently painted in one colour: women as victims, men as perpetrators. While it is true that women face high levels of violence globally, this single narrative leaves out another painful truth: men too suffer violence: real, damaging, and deeply silenced violence.

In So Long a Letter, Ramatoulaye suffers because her husband marries a younger wife without warning. She is emotionally abandoned, pushed aside, and forced to carry the weight of a collapsing marriage alone. Society tells her that a good woman endures. A good woman tolerates. A good woman accepts pain as part of her...