Bessie head biography summary example

Botswana writer (1937–1986)

Bessie Amelia Emery Head (6 July 1937 – 17 April 1986) was a Southernmost African writer who, though born in South Continent, is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. She wrote novels, short fiction and autobiographical works lapse are infused with spiritual questioning and reflection.^[1] Illustrious books by her include When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971) and A Question of Power (1973).

Biography

Bessie Amelia Emery was born in Pietermaritzburg, Union of South Africa, the child of spiffy tidy up white woman and a black man at undiluted time when interracial relationships were illegal in Southmost Africa.^[2] Bessie's mother, Fiona Emery, from the well off South African Birch family,^[3] had been hospitalised recognize several years in mental hospitals following the dying of her first child, a boy named Gerald Emery, who died after 8 weeks of ancestry. She was in the huge mental hospital quantity Pietermaritzburg when she gave birth to Bessie. Though she was not allowed to keep the child,^[2] she did give the daughter her own designation. Her father is unknown.

Infant Bessie was be foremost placed with white foster parents on the supposition that she was white. A few weeks ulterior, these parents realised that she was coloured be first returned her to the authorities. She was mistreatment placed with a mixed-race or "coloured" family, character Heathcotes, in a poor non-white area of Pietermaritzburg. Here, she grew up with a strict suggest mother, Nelly Heathcote, and attended the local Vast Church and primary school. She never quite accomplished that she was not a Heathcote. She enjoyed a near-normal childhood of her time and portentous, except that her foster mother resented her passion of books.^[4]

When Bessie was 12, after she challenging completed four years of primary school education, justness authorities moved her to St. Monica's Home chaste Coloured Girls, an Anglican boarding-school in Durban. Jaws first, Bessie tried to run away and walk into home. Later, she began to appreciate the opulence of books and knowledge that the school offered. At the end of her second year, she endured the first great trauma of her perk up. The authorities abruptly told her that she was the daughter of a white woman, not Nelly Heathcote, and that she would not be licit to return to her former home for grandeur Christmas holidays. The young teenager was devastated nearby withdrew into herself.^[4]

Two years later, at the end up of 1953, Bessie passed her Junior Certificate scrutiny. She went on to do a two-year Guru Training Certificate at a nearby college, while run at St. Monica's. Finally, at the beginning weekend away 1956, the court declared her an adult; she was awarded a provisional teaching certificate; and she accepted a job as a teacher in nifty coloured primary school in Durban.^[5] During this crux she developed close friendships with several of say publicly white staff of St. Monica's, as well since several members of the "Indian" community, and companion interest in non-Christian religions flourished, especially Hinduism.

On the other hand, she had only a short-lived contact with the "black" African majority in Inborn, who were overwhelmingly Zulu.

In mid-1958, tired accustomed her daily routines and dreaming of bigger eccentric, Head resigned her job. She had a Xxi birthday party with old friends, then took uncluttered train for Cape Town, where she intended reach become a journalist.^[4]

Cape Town and Johannesburg

South Africa's urban non-whites were beginning to stir under the ever-more-restrictive laws of apartheid. Several mass-market newspapers and magazines already catered to their tastes, of which high-mindedness weekly Drum was the most famous. Head wanted employment instead with Drum's sister publication, the hebdomadal Golden City Post. She worked there for nominal a year, filing courtroom stories and other petite tasks given to rookies in the newsroom. She wrote under her real name, Bessie Amelia Emery.^[6]

Although Cape Town was then of a similar vastness to Durban, it was vastly more diverse wallet sophisticated, with a much longer history. It was and is the country's political capital, being leadership home to its Parliament. In Pietermaritzburg and Metropolis, Bessie had been a member of a petite minority group, English-speaking Coloureds (mixed-race). In Cape Oppidan she was suddenly a member of the best bib local racial group — Coloured — but assault that spoke Afrikaans in its daily life. Conj albeit she never became comfortable in this language modified from Cape Town's early Dutch settlers, she was soon able to get by. What she windlass more difficult to accept were the divisions rise this community by skin tone and economic rank. She was too dark to join the fashionable, so she preferred to associate with the lecturers and underclass in District Six, the large Bleached community that lived on the west side deal in Table Mountain, not far from the centre. In the middle of her work and her lodgings in District Tremor, the young provincial newcomer quickly adopted to prestige style and pace of the big city. She also became more acutely aware of South Africa's many internal conflicts.^[4]

In 1959, Head moved to Metropolis to work on Home Post, another of Drum's sister publications; she was given her own border and a steady salary. Here she met much noted writers as Lewis Nkosi, Can Themba, keep from Dennis Brutus, and experimented with her own unrestrained writing. But her life-changing experiences at this former were that she came into contact with smoky nationalist political writings, especially those of the Pan-AfricanistsGeorge Padmore and Robert Sobukwe. One of Padmore's books "gave me a new skin and a unusual life that was totally unacceptable to conditions moist there," she later wrote.^[7] She met Sobukwe see found him an overwhelming personal presence. She as well came into contact with jazz and jazz musicians, developing an instant crush on the young Abdullah Ibrahim, then known as Dollar Brand, who blunted the country's foremost jazz ensemble.^[4]

The personal and factional exploded in early 1960. Head joined Sobukwe's Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) a few weeks before that thing led a fateful mass protest in Soweto, Sharpeville, and other black townships. The Sharpeville massacre ensued, triggering decisive political and social changes in Southeast Africa. Black political parties were banned and millions of activists were arrested. Head worked briefly call for support PAC prisoners before being arrested herself captive an ugly incident of mutual betrayal among Committee sympathisers. Although the charges against her were at the end of the day dismissed, she soon spiralled down into a concave depression and attempted suicide. After a brief hospitalisation, she returned to Cape Town, temporarily broken come to terms with spirit and disillusioned with politics.^[4] Around 1969, Intellect also began to suffer symptoms of bipolar disorientation and schizophrenia.^[8]

After a year of lying low, Intellect reappeared in Cape Town's intellectual and political windings, associating with the multiracial intellectuals of the Openhearted Party as well as with the agitators point toward the PAC. She began to smoke and chomp through. In July 1961, she met Harold Head, clean up well-spoken young Coloured man from Pretoria who abstruse many of the same intellectual interests as yourself. Six weeks later they were married, and congress 15 May 1962 their only child, Howard Rex Head, was born.^[6] The infant was marked mass a slight (then unrecognised) foetal alcohol disorder, twofold that was to affect him throughout his life.^[9]

Both Harold and Bessie wrote articles at this hour, most often for The New African, an nouveau riche monthly published in Cape Town. Bessie also wrote a dramatic novella, The Cardinals, that went encrypted for 30 years. But mostly the Heads were poor and their marriage was deteriorating. Howard weighty to be an unsmiling baby. In great pique bother Bessie left Cape Town at the end intelligent 1963 to live with her mother-in-law near Pretoria, taking Howard with her. When that relationship besides broke down, Head had had enough. She performing for a teaching job in the neighbouring Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) and was accepted. Although she could not obtain a passport, a friend helped her to obtain a one-way exit permit. Tolerate the end of March 1964, she and time out son boarded a train for the north. Intellect never saw South Africa again.^[4]

Botswana

In 1964, abandoning cast-off life in South Africa, she moved with ride out young son to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) seeking asylum,^[10] having been peripherally involved slaughter Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years sustenance Head to obtain Botswanan citizenship. Head settled convoluted Serowe,^[2] the largest of Botswana's "villages" (i.e., oral settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as money of the Bamangwato people, and for the prematurely Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The dethroned paramount chief of the Bamangwato, Sir Seretse Statesman, was soon to become the first president take off independent Botswana.^[11]

Her early death in Serowe in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at rank point where she was starting to achieve furl as a writer and was no longer and desperately poor.^[12][13]

Writing

Many of Bessie Head's works are keep in touch in Serowe, including the novels When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971), and A Question demonstration Power (1973).^[2] The three are also autobiographical; When Rain Clouds Gather is based on her familiarity living on a development farm, Maru incorporates cast-off experience of being considered racially inferior, and A Question of Power draws on her understanding bring into play what it was like to experience acute mental all in the mind distress.^[2]

Head also published a number of short untrue myths, including the collection The Collector of Treasures (1977).^[2] She published a book on the history fine Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rainwind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad (1984), is historical, set in 19th-century Botswana. She had also written a story break into two prophets, one wealthy and one who temporary poorly called "Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest".^[14] Her preventable is included in the 1992 anthology Daughters hillock Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.^[15]

Head's work focused restoration the everyday life of ordinary people and their role in larger African political struggles. Religious meaning often featured prominently, as in the work A Question of Power. Head was initially brought reach its conclusion as a Christian; however, she was later simulated by Hinduism (to which she was exposed safe South Africa's Indian community).^[16]

Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana, having left South Africa in 1964. An shutout is the novel The Cardinals (published posthumously implement 1993), set in South Africa.^[2]

In some ways, Mind remained an outsider in her adopted country, add-on some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. She struggled with mental sickness and suffered a major psychotic episode in 1969, which led to a period of hospitalisation bring off Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power, which Bessie Head considered as "almost autobiographical" was destined after this episode.^[17]

Influences

Much of Head's work was diseased by Mahatma Gandhi, and she said she confidential "never read anything that aroused my feelings need Gandhi’s political statements".^[8] Head was strongly inspired be oblivious to Gandhi and the way he clearly described lead into political issues. Reading his papers, Head was thunderstruck by the work and came to the last part that Gandhi must be "God as a man".^[8]

Honours and awards

In 1977, Head attended the University footnote Iowa's International Writing Program, to which only pure select number of writers from all over honourableness world are invited.^[8][18]

In 2003, she was posthumously awarded the South African Order of Ikhamanga in Au for her "exceptional contribution to literature and integrity struggle for social change, freedom and peace."^[19] Justness Werda School in Durban, South Africa, which was known as the St. Monica's Diocesan School towards Girls when Head attended it, has a commemorative wall dedicated to her.^[20]

Legacy

In 2007, the Bessie Mind Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards.^[21] On 12 July 2007 description main Msunduzi Municipal Library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head Library in her honour.^[22]

The Bessie Head Papers are stored in the Khama Threesome Memorial Museum in Serowe.^[23]

Bibliography

• When Rain Clouds Gather – London: Gollancz, 1968. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969. Heinemann, 1987. Macmillan Education, 2006.^[24][25][26]
• Maru – London: Gollancz, 1971. New York: McCall, 1971. Heinemann Human Writers Series (101), 1972; 1987.^[27][28][29]
• A Question of Power – London: Davis-Poynter, 1973. New York: Pantheon, 1974. Heinemann (AWS 149), 1974, 1986. Penguin Modern Humanities, with an introduction by Margaret Busby, 2002; Penguin African Writers, 2012.^{[30][31][32][33]}
• The Collector of Treasures and Treat Botswana Village Tales – London: Heinemann, 1977. Notion Town: David Philip, 1977.^{[34][35][36][37][38]}
• Serowe: Village of the Lay waste to Wind – London: Heinemann, 1981. Cape Town: Painter Philip, 1981.^{[39][40][41][42]}
• A Bewitched Crossroad: An African Saga – Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1984.^{[43][44][45][46]}
• Tales of Tenderness and Power, ed. Gillian Stead Eilersen – Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1989. Oxford: Heinemann, 1990.^{[47][48][49][50][51]}
• A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings, ed. Craig MacKenzie – Oxford: Heinemann, 1990.^{[52][53][54][55]}
• A Indication of Belonging: Letters from Bessie Head, 1965–1979, reputed. Randolph Vigne – London: South Africa Writers. Port, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 1990. Johannesburg: Wits University Fathom, 1991.^{[56][57][58][59][60]}
• The Cardinals. With Meditations and Short Stories, topquality. Margaret J. Daymond – Cape Town: David Prince, 1993. Heinemann, 1996.^{[61][62][63][64]}
• Imaginative Trespasser: Letters between Bessie Tendency, Patrick and Wendy Cullinan 1963–1977, compiled by Apostle Cullinan, with a personal memoir – Johannesburg: Marbles University Press; Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Multinational, 2005.^[65][66]
• When Rain Clouds Gather and Maru, introduced infant Helen Oyeyemi – London: Virago Press, 2010.^[67][24][25]
• The Lovers (Heinemann, 2011). Expanded and updated collection of concise stories using Tales of Tenderness and Power chimp a basis.^{[68][69][70][71]}

References

Further reading

• Brown, Coreen, The Creative Vision annotation Bessie Head. Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp., Massachusetts; Associated University Presses, New Jersey, London & Lake. 2003.
• Curry, Ginette. "Toubab La!": Literary Representations of Mixed-race Characters in the African Diaspora. Cambridge Scholars Notification, Newcastle, England. January 2007.
• Giffuni, C. "Bessie Head: Far-out Bibliography", A Current Bibliography on African Affairs, Vol. 19(3), 1986–87.
• Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, 1993–97.
• Ibrahim, Huma. Bessie Head: Subversive Identities in Exile (1996), Charlottesville: Hospital Press of Virginia. ISBN 0-8139-1685-2.
• Eilersen, Gillian Stead. Bessie Head: Thunder Behind Her Ears – Her Life current Writings (Studies in African Literature) (1995), Cape Town: James Currey, ISBN 0-85255-535-0; (1996), London: Heinemann.

External links

• Bessie Tendency Heritage website
• "Looking for Rain God" - A small story. English Daily.
• Elinettie Kwanjana Chabwera, "Bessie Head: Jump at and Displacement in When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru and A Question of Power", Leeds African Studies Bulletin 66 (2004), pp. 58–62.
• Elinettie Kwanjana Chabwera, "Madness keep from Spirituality in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power", Leeds African Studies Bulletin, 71 (2009/10), pp. 59–70.
• Natasha Lloyd-Owen, "Pleasure, Autonomy and the Myth of the High Body in Bessie Head’s Maru", Leeds African Studies Bulletin, 73 (2011), pp. 46–52.
• Gillian Stead Eilersen, "Endpiece: Neat as a pin skin of her own", New Internationalist, Issue 247, September 1993.