Maru

Maru PDF Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478611618
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
Read worldwide for her wisdom, authenticity, and skillful prose, South African–born Bessie Head (1937–1986) offers a moving and magical tale of an orphaned girl, Margaret Cadmore, who goes to teach in a remote village in Botswana where her own people are kept as slaves. Her presence polarizes a community that does not see her people as human, and condemns her to the lonely life of an outcast. In the love story and intrigue that follows, Head brilliantly combines a portrait of loneliness with a rich affirmation of the mystery and spirituality of life. The core of this otherworldly, rhapsodic work is a plot about racial injustice and prejudice with a lesson in how traditional intolerance may render whole sections of a society untouchable.

Maru

Maru PDF Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478611618
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
Read worldwide for her wisdom, authenticity, and skillful prose, South African–born Bessie Head (1937–1986) offers a moving and magical tale of an orphaned girl, Margaret Cadmore, who goes to teach in a remote village in Botswana where her own people are kept as slaves. Her presence polarizes a community that does not see her people as human, and condemns her to the lonely life of an outcast. In the love story and intrigue that follows, Head brilliantly combines a portrait of loneliness with a rich affirmation of the mystery and spirituality of life. The core of this otherworldly, rhapsodic work is a plot about racial injustice and prejudice with a lesson in how traditional intolerance may render whole sections of a society untouchable.

When Rain Clouds Gather

When Rain Clouds Gather PDF Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478611677
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Rural Botswana is the backdrop for When Rain Clouds Gather, the first novel published by one of Africa’s leading woman writers in English, Bessie Head (1937–1986). Inspired by her own traumatic life experiences as an outcast in Apartheid South African society and as a refugee living at the Bamangwato Development Association Farm in Botswana, Head’s tough and telling classic work is set in the poverty-stricken village of Golema Mmidi, a haven to exiles. A South African political refugee and an Englishman join forces to revolutionize the villagers’ traditional farming methods, but their task is fraught with hazards as the pressures of tradition, opposition from the local chief, and the unrelenting climate threaten to divide and devastate the fragile community. Head’s layered, compelling story confronts the complexities of such topics as social and political change, conflict between science and traditional ways, tribalism, the role of traditional African chiefs, religion, race relations, and male–female relations.

Bessie Head

Bessie Head PDF Author: Joyce Johnson
Publisher: Associated University Presse
ISBN: 9780874130096
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Introduces key concepts needed for map reading and map making. This series explores different types of maps, photographs and illustrations, and includes activities and quizzes, making it ideal for learning essential map skills.

A Question of Power

A Question of Power PDF Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478635142
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
In this fast-paced, semi-autobiographical novel, Head exposes the complicated life of Elizabeth, whose reality is intermingled with nightmarish dreams and hallucinations. Like the author, Elizabeth was conceived out-of-wedlock; her mother was white and her father black—a union outlawed in apartheid South Africa. Elizabeth eventually leaves with her young son to live in Botswana, a country less oppressed by colonial domination, where she finds stability for herself and her son by working on an experimental farm. As readers grow to know Elizabeth, they experience the inner chaos that threatens her stability, and her constant struggle to emerge from the torment of her dreams. There she is plagued by two men, Sello and Dan, who represent complex notions of politics, sex, religion, individuality, and the blurred line between good and evil. Elizabeth’s troubling but amazing roller-coaster ride ends in an unfettered discovery.

A Woman Alone

A Woman Alone PDF Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Heinemann International Incorporated
ISBN: 9780435906030
Category : Authors, South African
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A collection of autobiographical writings, sketches, and essays that covers the entire span of Bessie Head's creative life.

The Cardinals

The Cardinals PDF Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Heinemann
ISBN: 9780435909673
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
The Cardinals--thought to be the first long piece of fiction Head produced and the only one she ever set in South Africa--is an exciting literary event.

The Collector of Treasures

The Collector of Treasures PDF Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Heinemann
ISBN: 9780435909819
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Botswana village tales about subjects such as the breakdown of family life and the position of women in this society.

Bessie Head

Bessie Head PDF Author: Gillian Stead Eilersen
Publisher: James Currey
ISBN: 9780852555354
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Bessie Head's novels include Where Rain Clouds Gather and A Question of Power .

Bessie Head and the Trauma of Exile

Bessie Head and the Trauma of Exile PDF Author: Joshua Agbo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000398633
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book investigates themes of exile and oppression in Southern Africa across Bessie Head’s novels and short fiction. An exile herself, arriving in Botswana as a South African refugee, Bessie Head’s fiction serves as an important example of African exile literature. This book argues that Head’s characters are driven to exile as a result of their socio- political ambivalence while still in South Africa, and that this sense of discomfort follows them to their new lives. Investigating themes of trauma and identity politics across colonial and post- colonial contexts, this book also addresses the important theme of black- on- black prejudice and hostility which is often overlooked in studies of Head’s work. Covering Head’s shorter fiction as well as her major novels When Rain Clouds Gather (1969), Maru (1971), A Question of Power (1973), Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind (1981), and A Bewitched Crossroads: An African Saga (1984), this book will be of interest to researchers of African literature and postcolonial history.

The Lovers

The Lovers PDF Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
ISBN: 9780435045715
Category : Short stories, South African (English)
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
The Lovers collects Head's short fiction of the 1960s and 70s, written mainly in Serowe, Botswana, and depicting the lives and loves of African village people pre- and post-independence. An earlier selection called Tales of Tenderness and Power was published in the Heinemann African Writers Series in 1990, but this expanded and updated volume adds many previously unavailable stories collected here for the first time. Anthology favourites like her breakthrough 'The Woman from America' and 'The Prisoner who Wore Glasses' are included, leading up to the first complete text of her much translated title story. Stephen Gray is a noted South African scholar and novelist.