The Legacy of Medea: Mariama Bâ, "Un Chant écarlate" and Marie Ndiaye, "La Femme changée en bûche"

These two novels can be linked through their use of the infanticide theme to the Medea story, of which Euripedes's play is the best-known literary version. Mariama Bâ's realist portrayal of the tensions within a mixed marriage in contemporary Senegal makes no reference to Medea, and contrasts sharply with Marie Ndiaye's postmodern fantasy, inspired in some respects of the narrative by the Greek myth, but far removed from it in spirit. Bâ is firmly rooted in Black feminist discourse; Ndiaye, on the other hand, refuses ethnic specificity. Both writers, however, illustrate the perennial richness of the theme of infanticide.