Longman / Prentice Hall

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Question of Power, A
Bessie Head

ISBN-10: 0435907204
ISBN-13: 9780435907204

Publisher: Longman
Copyright: 1987
Format: Paper; 206 pp
Estimated Availability: 08/20/2008

Suggested retail price: $13.95
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One of Africa's Best Books of the 20th Century.

'Your mother was insane. If you're not careful you'll get insane just like your mother. Your mother was a white woman. They had to lock her up, as she was having a child by the stable boy who was a native.'

It is never clear to Elizabeth whether the mission school principal's cruel revelation of her origins is at the bottom of her mental breakdown. She has left South Africa with her son and is living in the village of Motabeng, the place of sand, in Botswana where there are no street lights at night. In the darkness of this country where people turn and look at her with vague curiosity as an outsider she establishes an entirely abnormal relationship with two men. A mind-bending book which takes the reader in and out of sanity.

Born in South Africa, Bessie Head, had a traumatic life and she drew heavily upon her experiences for her novels. Her first novel, When Rain Clouds Gather grew out of her experience as a refugee, and was followed by Maru and A Question of Power (1973). In 1977 she published The Collector of Treasures, a book of short stories exploring the position of women in Africa.


Bessie Head died in Serowe, Botswana in 1986, aged only 49.

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This title is a member of the AWS African Writers Series, which also contains the titles below . You can also visit the AWS African Writers Series page.

    This anthology of  twenty different writers, with an interesting blend of well known and newer, lesser known writers, represent all over Africa. They stories have been grouped geographically into four different sections: West, East, North and Southern Africa. It is a wonderful a pleasure to read.

  • 0435905368African Short Stories
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    © 1987 | Longman | Paper; 159 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0435905368 | ISBN-13: 9780435905361
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    • 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 unique skill. Drawing on the rich oral tradition of Southern Africa, Bessie Head uses the language and imagery of the story-telling tradition. The collection is carefully sequenced, focusing on village people from Botswana, and the status and position of women in Africa.

  • 0435909819The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales, 2/E
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    • Ihuoma, a beautiful young widow of exemplary character, has the admiration of the entire community in which she lives including the hunter Ekwueme. Obedient to the expectations of the traditional society to which they belong, they forswear their love so that Ekwueme can marry the girl to whom he has betrothed since birth.  But their passion is fated and jealousy, a love potion and the closeness of the spirit world, lift this simple Nigerian tale onto a tragic plane.

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    • 'Ever since they left Thies, the women had not stopped singing. As soon as one group allowed the refrain to die, another picked it up, and new verses were born at the hazard of chance or inspiration, one word leading to another and each finding, in its turn, its rhythm and its place. No one was very sure any longer where the song began, or if it had an ending. It rolled out over its own length, like the movement of a serpent. It was as long as a life.'

     

    This classic African novel, first published in the 1960s, is set during the Dakar-Nigeria railway atrike of 1947-8 and is seen through the workers' eyes. Sembene Ousmane, in this vivid and moving novel, evinces all of the colour, passion and tragedy of those decisive years in the history of West Africa. Translated from the French by Francis Price.
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    • Capturing the diversity of African writing from across the continent, this important  anthology draws together well-established authors and the best of new writers.

    From the harsh realities of South Africa, elegantly described by Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer, to the fantastic world of Booker Prize winner Ben Okri and from the magic realism of Mozambican Mia Couto to the surreal world of Ghanaian Kojo Laing, the editors have distilled the essence of contemporary African writing. Blending the supernatural and the secular, the market-place and the shrine, this anthology gives the reader a taste of the full range of African literary styles.

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    • The Joys of Motherhood tells the moving story of Nnu Ego, a West African woman devoted to her children, giving them all her life - with the result that she finds herself friendless and alone in middle age. The Joys of Motherhood is a powerful commentary on polygamy, patriarchy and women's changing roles in urban Nigeria.

     

    Includes a new Introduction by Dr Elleke Boehmer, Oxford University

    This novel was recognized as one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century in an initiative organized by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.

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    • Mine Boy has remained a central influence in South African fiction for over forty years.

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    First published in 1946, this novel was one of the first books to expose universally the condition of black South Africans under a white regime. Forceful but restrained images of discrimination in the gold mines and appalling housing contrast with Xuma's simple, humanitarian act of defiance.

     

    Mine Boy is widley read in both Literature and African History courses.
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    • African women are seldom given the space to express their concerns, their ideas and their reflections about the societies in which they live. In situations where a good woman is expected to remain silent, literature can provide an important medium for the expression of deeply-felt and sometimes shocking views.

     

    Commonwealth Writers Prize-winning novelist Yvonne Vera has selected prose and poetry from all over Africa for this anthology. This collection includes some of the newest and most talented writers in Africa today. They act as witnesses to the dramas of private and public life. Their stories challenge contemporary attitudes and behaviour, leaving no room for complacency. Contributors include: Ama Ata Aidoo, Veronique Tadjo, Farida Karodia, Lindsey Collen, Sindiwe Magona. Includes The Museum, Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing 2000

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    • One of Africa's Best Books of the 20th Century.

    'Your mother was insane. If you're not careful you'll get insane just like your mother. Your mother was a white woman. They had to lock her up, as she was having a child by the stable boy who was a native.'

    It is never clear to Elizabeth whether the mission school principal's cruel revelation of her origins is at the bottom of her mental breakdown. She has left South Africa with her son and is living in the village of Motabeng, the place of sand, in Botswana where there are no street lights at night. In the darkness of this country where people turn and look at her with vague curiosity as an outsider she establishes an entirely abnormal relationship with two men. A mind-bending book which takes the reader in and out of sanity.
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    Head
    © 1987 | Longman | Paper; 206 pages | Estimated Availability: 08/20/2008
    ISBN-10: 0435907204 | ISBN-13: 9780435907204
    Brief Description

    • The River Between explores life on the Makuyu and Kameno ridges of Kenya in the early days of white settlement.

     

    Faced with an alluring new religion and 'magical' customs, the Gikuyu people are torn between those who fear the unknown and those who see beyond it. Some follow Joshua and his fiery brand of Christianity. Others proudly pursue tribal independence. In the midst of this disunity stands Waiyaki, a dedicated visionary born to a line of prophets. He struggles to educate the tribe - a task he sees as the only unifying link between the two factions - but his plans for the future raise issues which will determine both his own and the Gikuyu's survival.
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    • 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.

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