Her frustration with the fate of African women-as well as her ultimate acceptance of it-is expressed in her first novel, So Long a Letter. Bâ later married a Senegalese member of Parliament, Obèye Diop, but divorced him and was left to care for their nine children. Raised by her traditional grandparents, she had to struggle even to gain an education, because they did not believe that girls should be taught. Born in Dakar, she was raised a Muslim, but at an early age came to criticise what she perceived as inequalities between the sexes resulting from traditions.

Darhower Amazon || BN.Mariama Bâ (1929 – 1981) was a Senegalese author and feminist, who wrote in French. It’s a long, emotional and satisfying read. It turns a person inside out, and there’s no going back from it. It’s beautiful and messy,Ĭracking a chest open and spilling their soul out for the world to see. When love strikes someone like lightning, so powerful and intense it can’t be denied. This did not detract from the book at all though. There are a lot of italian phrases which were beautiful, but since they took the wikipedia link off my kindle app, they were much harder to look up. It was wonderful in that it showed such innocence, and such cold-hearted killing. It deals with ‘La Famiglia’, human trafficing, loss of a parent/spouse, lots of violence, class differences, and the list goes on. Then Haven, who grew up with nothing, nowhere, came into his life like a ‘ninja’ and changed everything. Both of his boys were charming, but Carmine, the younger one began as a brooding young man who did drugs, fucked anything that had boobs, was messing around in school, and was the ‘Princepe’ to the mob. He lost his wife and the love of his life years before to the ‘life’ and somehow Haven is involved.

Demarco, another mafia guy who lives with his 2 teenaged boys in North Carolina while spending most of his time away, doing ‘business’ in Chicago. Haven grows up as a slave to a Mafia family in a nowhere town in California. It was a long, meaty read and I hope to read a sequel soon. I laughed, I cried, my heart broke multiple times, I was on the edge of my seat, then it all began again. While I usually prefer an older, slightly smuttier read, this story left me wanting for nothing. This book, Sempre (Forever) by JM Darhower grabbed me, pulled me in, and didn’t let me go for 3 days.

Sempre by J.M. Darhower