Bessie Head: New Considerations, Continuing Questions

Callaloo ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 277
Author(s):  
Arlene A. Elder ◽  
Cecil Abrahams ◽  
Randolph Vigne
Keyword(s):  
Bessie Head

scholarly journals “Madness”: The Metaphor to Imply Multiple Meanings and its Significance in A Question of Power

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Yan Li
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Bessie Head ◽  
The World ◽  
Multiple Meanings

<p>Since its access to the literary circle, “madness”, with its abundant metaphorical meanings, has become the most prevalent tool for criticism adopted by writers of the world. It seems that all conflicts in the works can be solved when “the illusion of a mad would be pushed to the truth”. Bessie Head, a female writer, born in South Africa but exiled in Botswana where she finally got the citizenship, wrote about her torturing experiences in South Africa as a “Colored” by depicting the experiences of a mad girl named Elizabeth, who actually was the writer herself, and whose madness was metaphorically adopted to signify all the horrible reality of her life. “Madness” is but an aesthetic perspective of the author for the limitless meaning of “madness” can signify.</p>

Bessie Head: A portrait in black and white

Scrutiny2 ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 119-124
Author(s):  
Craig Mackenzie
Keyword(s):  
Bessie Head ◽  
Black And White

Bessie Head: The Idealist

2015 ◽  
pp. 100-110
Keyword(s):  
Bessie Head

Head, Bessie Amelia (1937–1986)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Bessie Head ◽  
White Mother ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Psychiatric Institution ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
History Of

Novelist, short-story and non-fiction writer Bessie Head was born in a Pietermaritzburg psychiatric institution, her white mother Bessie Amelia Emery (née Birch), who had had a long history of mental illness, having unexpectedly become pregnant (the identity of Head’s black father has never been discovered). Head grew up in foster care until the age of 13; thereafter the welfare authorities placed her in an Anglican mission orphanage in Durban. In 1961 she met and married fellow journalist Harold Head in Cape Town; their only child, Howard, was born in 1962. After the break-up of her marriage in 1964 she relinquished South African citizenship and took up a teaching post in Serowe, Botswana. Plagued by ill health and mental instability, she died in Serowe with six published works to her name and an international reputation as one of Africa’s foremost woman writers. Head’s first novel, When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), deals in predominantly realist fashion with the flight from South Africa of a young black political activist, his resettlement in Botswana and marriage to a Batswana woman. Her second novel, Maru (1971), which derives its name from its eponymous central character, is an altogether more complex work.

scholarly journals Bury my bones but keep my words: The interface between oral tradition and contemporary African writing

Literator ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-44
Author(s):  
M.J. Cloete
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Oral Literature ◽  
Bessie Head ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
School Curricula

The contention in this article is that African oral tradition should be reexamined in view of its perceived new importance in the work of African novelists. This article investigates the nature and definition of oral tradition, as well as the use of oral tradition as a cultural tool. The increasing inclusion of oral literature as part of the African literature component within university and school curricula is discussed. Finally, the pronounced role of oral tradition in fiction is examined, using as exemplars some seminal works of Bessie Head (1978, 1990 and 1995 ) and Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1965, 1977, 1981, and 1982).

Meeting Bessie Head in Adelaide, March 1984

1988 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-135
Keyword(s):  
Bessie Head
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