Keeping a notebook in the cotton-growing region of Mali. Where to write and what it means. This paper is based on an ethnographic research on literacy practices in a village located in the cotton-growing region of Mali. The area is partially literate, with Bamanan, French, and Arabic used as written languages. The paper focuses on notebook-writing, a common practice meant to keep personal records. It investigates the anthropological meanings of this practice, by paying specific attention to its materiality. The notebook, as an object, is a personal belonging. It also represents the site where the writer takes hold of written models for his own purposes. As a "graphic space", it is handled in different ways: some writers cautiously reorganise the outlines of their self by following a specific order in writing, whereas others devote it to mere collection. Through these different dimensions, notebook-writing offers a space where to explore new forms of subjectivity.