The latest addition to my website is Mariama Bâ‘s Un chant écarlate (Scarlet Song). Ousmane Gueye, a young Senegalese falls for a white French girl, Mireille, daughter of a French diplomat at school. They both go to the same Senegalese university and continue their relationship. However, when her parents find out, she is immediately sent back to France. Ousmane knows his parents would have a similar reaction. Ousmane does well as a teacher and he is able to travel to France. The couple immediately marry and she converts to Islam and accompanies him back to Senegal. There she is expected to be the good Muslim wife, waiting on him hand and foot and kowtowing to her mother-in-law, who c;early despises her. She is not happy. He cannot understand why she will not make the effort to assimilate. Then an old girlfriend of his, Ouleymatou, reappears. She knows how to play the game – helping Ousmane’s mother with household tasks and parading herself before Ousmane who is weak-willed. After all Mireille knows Muslim men are allowed a second wife so what could go wrong? This is a powerful but sad novel about the dangers of mixed marriages.