So Long A Letter is part of a larger tradition called postcolonial literature. Postcolonial literature is a term to refer to literature written in parts of the non-Western world that were formerly colonies, written slightly before, during, and after struggles for independence.
According to literary scholar John Marx, postcolonial literature does two things: repudiate the canon and revise it. However, postcolonial literature cannot be read solely as something that "writes back" to Western literature: often it consists of authors trying to create new traditions, both inside and between their nations. For So Long A Letter, that means it's involved in conversations about what the Senegalese nation might look like, as well as questions of Pan-Africanism and gender.
