Bessie Head

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South African born, Botswanan by political exile, the bi-racial BH was a living criticism of the South African apartheid laws. She began her writing career with journalism which in time became politically active, and went on to publish novels (her last one closely founded on historical research), short stories, and books about her adopted homeland. Her early death cut short her work on her autobiography.

Milestones

6 July 1937

Bessie Amelia Emery (later Head) was born at Fort Napier Mental Institution in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, after her white mother (after years confined in a different mental hospital) somehow got pregnant while out on a family visit.
Eilersen, Gillian Stead. Bessie Head. Wits University Press.
7-9

11 March 1969

Having used a small grant from the World Council of Churches
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
to finance its writing, BH published her first novel, When Rain Clouds Gather, through Simon and Schuster in New York.
Eilersen, Gillian Stead. Bessie Head. Wits University Press.
131
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
57471 (29 January 1969): 8

October 1973

BH 's third novel, A Question of Power, can be seen as autobiographical or allegorical. It is non-naturalistic, tracing a woman's descent into madness and gradual return to sanity, a kind of fall and redemption, a cosmic struggle between inward good and evil.
Eilersen, Gillian Stead. Bessie Head. Wits University Press.
185

17 April 1986

BH died in hospital in Serowe of liver failure consequent on hepatitis.
Eilersen, Gillian Stead. Bessie Head. Wits University Press.
342-4
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
62445 (1 May 1986): 18

Biography

Birth and Contexts

6 July 1937

Bessie Amelia Emery (later Head) was born at Fort Napier Mental Institution in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, after her white mother (after years confined in a different mental hospital) somehow got pregnant while out on a family visit.
Eilersen, Gillian Stead. Bessie Head. Wits University Press.
7-9