The novelist Diary Sow participated on Thursday through a video conference in the “Exclusive Feminine Forum” organized by the French Institute in Saint-Louis. His “disappearance” in January 2021 had moved the whole country and aroused a very strong mobilization within the diaspora. When she returned, she had mentioned “an irreversible need to cut the bridges for a moment.”
as reported from Dakar, Charlotte idrac
Behind her screen, in a room that could be a living room or a dining room, Diary Sow seems to be smiling at the opening conference of this forum dedicated to women. The author of the novel Under the Face of an Angel does not directly evoke the episode that stirred up the whole of Senegal in January. But in eco, she first returns to her educational model.
“When I was growing up, I saw the women around me with the weight of silence, stoicism, passive acceptance of things … I realized that this model that was introduced for all the girls in my country was not without flaws. And that I was not really sure I wanted to follow it. “
A deeply feminist message
It was the books that opened her eyes, she says, “novels that pointed an accusing finger at polygamy, misogyny or even early marriage” and made her write. Diary Sow pays tribute to feminists in her country and calls on the new generation to take over.
“We are still too shy, I think. We bow to the weight of religion and tradition. We forget ourselves in the face of standards and shackles that want to lock us up. When there are some who dare to launch and live their truth, and not the one who is imposed on them, we often deny them this legitimacy. “
To be free, take responsibility for your choices as the characters in your books. In her second novel, Diary Sow tells the story of a teenage girl who flees the family home “in the hope of living the life she has always dreamed of”.
►Read also: In Senegal, Diary Sow is back on social media to promote a novel
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