ENG1501 - Foundations in English Literary Studies (ENG1501)
Institution
University Of South Africa (Unisa)
Book
When Rain Clouds Gather And Maru
When Rainclouds Gather: Escaping South Africa and his troubled past, Makehaya crosses the border to Botswana, in the hope of leading a peaceful, purposeful life. In the village of Golema Mmidi he meets Gilbert, a charismatic Englishman who is trying to modernise farming methods to benefit the commu...
ENG1501 - Foundations in English Literary Studies (ENG1501)
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,Bessie Head
South Africa, 1937-1986
When Rain Clouds Gather
1969, EN, Botswana
The poverty-striken village of Golema Mmidi, in the heart of rural
Botswana, is a haven to the exiles gathered there. When a political
refugee from South Africa joins forces with an English agricultural
expert, the time-honoured subsistence farming is challenged.
,BESSIE HEAD, one of Africa’s best-known women writers, was born
in South Africa in 1937, the result of an ‘illicit’ union between a black
man and a white woman. Her life was a traumatic one, and she drew
heavily upon her own experiences for her novels. She was looked after
by a foster family until she was thirteen, and then attended a mission
school. She trained as a teacher. After four years’ teaching she took a
job as a journalist for Drum magazine, but an unsuccessful marriage
and her involvement in the trial of a friend led her to apply for a teach-
ing post in Botswana, where she took up permanent exile. Her precari-
ous refugee status lasted fifteen years until she was granted Bot-
swanan citizenship in 1979.
Botswana is the backdrop for all three of her novels. When
Rain Clouds Gather, her first novel, based on her time as a refugee liv-
ing at the Bamangwato Development Farm, was published in 1969.
This was followed by Maru (1971) and the intense and powerful auto-
biographical work A Question of Power (1974). Her short stories ap-
peared as The Collector of Treasures in 1977, and in 1981 Serowe: Vil-
lage of the Rain Wind was published, a historical portrait of a hundred
years of a community in Botswana.
Bessie Head died in 1986, aged 49. A Woman Alone, a collec-
tion of autobiographical writings, Tales of Tenderness and Power and
The Cardinals were published posthumously.
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