The PMLA (Publications of the Modern Language Association), a preeminent academic journal for literary studies, has published a special issue dedicated to the rediscovery of Senegalese author Mariama Bâ’s poem “Festac…Souvenirs de Lagos” (translated as “Festac…Memories of Lagos”). Bâ, most known for her 1979 novel So Long a Letter, passed away in 1981, and “Memories of Lagos” is her only known poem.

This special issue builds on preliminary discussions held at a 2024 MLA convention roundtable around Bâ’s work. Many of the discussion participants expand their contributions in this issue, which also includes new responses to the poem, including from Bâ’s daughter Mame Coumba Ndiaye. The poem’s reemergence has prompted interdisciplinary readings from scholars working in fields such as African and Francophone literatures, Black Studies, Global South feminisms, media theory, ecocriticism, and print culture.

The poem “Memories of Lagos” reflects on the monumental 1977 FESTAC (Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture) hosted in Lagos, Nigeria, a month-long event attended by thousands of people from across the world that celebrated and showcased African culture. As Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature Tobias Warner’s introduction to the special issue points out, the festival itself was an important marker of Pan-Africanism, but Bâ’s reflection on it is not purely celebratory. The poem, in fact, offers a critical take on the marginalization of women in both the planning and documentation of such Pan-African events.

The special issue also brings fresh perspectives on the temporality and spatiality of Bâ’s work. Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel examines how “Memories of Lagos” challenges conventional understandings of time, blending past, present, and future in a way that transcends the festival’s temporal boundaries. Stéphane Robolin focuses on Bâ’s use of punctuation, particularly the ellipsis, which he argues creates a space for potential meaning—allowing gaps in representation to be filled by the reader’s own imagination. Similarly, Grace A. Musila discusses how the poem reflects on the unrealized potential of Pan-Africanism, particularly in terms of the unfulfilled promises of FESTAC ’77.

A key contribution to the issue comes from our own Editor-in-Chief Ainehi Edoro-Glines, who provocatively asks, “What if Bâ had had an Instagram account when she attended the festival?” In her article, “Mediated Ancestrality: Mariama Bâ, Instagram, and the Poetics of Fragmentation” Edoro-Glines draws a parallel between Bâ’s fragmented, accumulative style of writing and the fragmented nature of social media. She introduces the idea of “mediated ancestrality,” which explores how modern media technologies, like Instagram, allow for the ongoing construction and sharing of Black cultural memories, much like Bâ’s poem does. The issue closes with an interview between Tobias Warner and Mame Coumba Ndiaye, Mariama Bâ’s daughter, who played a key role in the rediscovery of the poem and other unpublished works.

As Warner’s introduction highlights, there is much excitement surrounding the recovery of Bâ’s work, especially given her pioneering role in bringing an analysis of gender into the study of African literature. He constellates the essays in this collection around the concept of the “souvenir”: “For Bâ, souvenirs were small but potent particles of the past that could still spark something in the present.” The poem and the reflections it has spawned in this special issue form souveniers, communal and personal, physical and mental, allowing us to see anew both Bâ’s legacy and the legacy of Pan-Africanism.