Bessie Head Books In Order

Novels

  1. When Rain Clouds Gather (1968)
  2. Maru (1971)
  3. A Question of Power (1972)
  4. A Bewitched Crossroad (1986)

Omnibus

  1. When Rain Clouds Gather and Maru (2010)

Collections

  1. The Collector of Treasures (1977)
  2. Tales of Tenderness and Power (1990)
  3. The Cardinals (1993)
  4. Deep Cuts (1993)
  5. To Stir the Heart (2007)

Picture Books

  1. The Lovers (1994)
  2. Life (2002)

Non fiction

  1. Serowe (1981)
  2. A Woman Alone (1990)
  3. A Gesture of Belonging (1991)

Novels Book Covers

Omnibus Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Picture Books Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

Bessie Head Books Overview

When Rain Clouds Gather

The poverty stricken village of Golema Mmidi, in the heart of rural Botswana, offers a haven to the exiles gathered there. Makhaya, a political refugee from South Africa, becomes involved with an English agricultural expert and the villagers as they struggle to upgrade their traditional farming methods with modern techniques. The pressures of tradition, the opposition of the local chief, and, above all, the harsh climate threaten to bring tragedy to the community, but strangely, there remains a hope for the future.

Maru

Margaret Cadmore, an orphaned Masarwa girl, comes to Dilepe to teach, only to discover that in this remote Botswana village her own people are treated as outcasts.

A Question of Power

It is never clear to Elizabeth whether the mission principal’s cruel revelations of her origins is at the bottom of her mental breakdown, but in the dark loneliness of the Botswanan night, the frightened South African refugee slips in and out of sanity.

The Collector of Treasures

A sequence of Botswana village tales about subjects such as the breakdown of family life and the position of women in this society told with all the skill that one has come to expect of Bessie Head.

Tales of Tenderness and Power

This is an anthology of stories, personal observations and historic legends. It reflects the author’s fascination with Africa’s people and their history as well as her identification with individuals and their conflicting emotions.

To Stir the Heart

From origin myths to tales of modern prostitutes in search of dignity even for only a moment these powerful stories by two renowned African authors explore the uneasy coexistence between women and men, tradition and modernity. They show strong women demanding their right to marry or not, earn a living, and most importantly, be respected. South African born Bessie Head 1937 1986 immigrated to Botswana, where she is considered their most important writer. Ngugi wa Thiong o is a major Kenyan writer now living in the United States. He teaches and directs an international writing center at the University of California, Irvine.

A Woman Alone

Intense personal experiences of South Africa’s brutal social system, a sense of stifled creativity and a distaste for politics made Bessie Head leave for Botswana on an exit permit at the age of 27. There, in her chosen rural haven of Serowe, and despite a severe mental breakdown, she wrote the novels and stories that earned her international recognition as one of Africa s most remarkabble and individual writers.

A Woman Alone is a collections of autobiographical writings, sketches, and essays which covers the entire span of Bessie Head s creative life, up to her death in 1986 at age 49. It reveals a woman of great sensitivity and vitality, inspired through her knowledge of suffering in a reverence for ordinary people and finding some healing for her own anguish in a quiet corner of Africa.

A Gesture of Belonging

This book is a selection from the letters Bessie Head wrote Randolph Vigne, a politician and literary friend from her Cape Town days.

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