ABSTRACT
As a young girl, Ramatoulaye in Une si longue lettre (1980) expresses misconceptions about motherhood: “Je croyais qu’un enfant naissait et grandissait sans problème. Je croyais qu’on traçait une voie droite et qu’il l’emprunterait allègrement” [I thought a child was born and grew up without any problem. I thought one mapped out a straight path and that he would step lightly down it] (110/75). Experience with her own children, however, proved otherwise: “Or, je vérifiais, à mes dépens les prophéties de ma grand-mère” [I saw, at first hand, the truth of my grandmother’s prophecies”] (110/75). The narrator is alluding to the wide gap between the institution of motherhood, a concept, and the experience of mothering, an activity.1 This gap or space can best be studied in African women’s autobiography.
