Growing up and nuturing a rural community: An interview with Hope Robson, Bishop's Castle, UK

Abstract The article traces the lasting alienation of Olga Kirsch (1927-1994), a Jewish-born South African poet, as represented in her seven volumes of Afrikaans poetry published between 1944 and 1983. Growing up in a devoutly Christian, Afrikaans-speaking rural community, she found herself an outsider. The conditions at home brought little comfort, while the awareness of the racial discrimination which permeated society further contributed to her isolation. Seeking for a heimat, she emigrated to Israel at the age of 24. Reading her poetry, it becomes clear that here, too, she remained a stranger, continuing to write and publish in Afrikaans.

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Stories from Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience

Departures in Critical Qualitative Research ◽

10.1525/dcqr.2015.4.1.89 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 89-96 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Robin M. Boylorn

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

North Carolina ◽

Black Women ◽

Creative Writing ◽

Rural Community ◽

Ethnographic Research ◽

Growing Up ◽

Rural South

Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience is an ethnographic autoethnography that collapses traditional ethnographic research, creative writing techniques, and autoethnography to tell a multi-generational story of growing up black and female in the rural South in the twentieth century. The following excerpts, taken from the Prologue and Chapter One, offer a framework and context for the reviews contained in the forum. By introducing the perspective of the writer, who situates herself as a researcher and insider in the community, these excerpts give the reader a glimpse into Sweetwater,* a rural community in the “heart” of North Carolina, where the stories take place.

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