In Conversation with Bessie Head

by Mary S. Lederer

Overview

In Conversation with Bessie Head shows how reading the novels and letters of Botswana's most influential writer, Bessie Head, fosters an ongoing conversation between reader and writer and is in fact a very personal undertaking. Each chapter tackles two parallel threads, the first regarding Mary S. Lederer's own history of reading Head-from her first purchase of Maru, through completing a Ph.D. on Head's trilogy, through living in Botswana and connecting with various aspects of Head's life, to examining how reading Head has affected her own development as a human being. This history then ties each chapter into discussion of how Head develops her own vision of the “brotherhood of man.”

Alongside critically informed discussion, Head's vision is examined through the prism of specific questions. Why is madness not a useful concept for understanding Head's ideas? Why did Head say she was not a feminist, and what is the significance of “male” and “female” in her novels? What is the relationship between individual, race, and community? How can the nature of God be a clear expression of love but also an indistinct force for both good and evil? Head's novels present opportunities for personal growth, and through these “conversations” with her, we become different readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501351419
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/27/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	168
File size:	399 KB

About the Author

Mary S. Lederer is an editor and independent scholar based in Gaborone, Botswana, and was formerly Senior Lecturer in African Literature at the University of Botswana. She is the author of Novels of Botswana in English, 1930-2006 (2014).
Mary S. Lederer received her Ph.D. in Southern African literature from UCLA and was formerly Senior Lecturer in African Literature at the University of Botswana. She resides in Gaborone, Botswana and works as an editor and independent scholar. She is the author of Novels of Botswana in English, 1930-2006 (2014).

Table of Contents

1: Introduction, Reading Bessie Head
2: “the woman…is no neurotic”
3: “they also forgot he was a man”
4: “each man is helpless before life”
5: “love…is a touchy thing”
6: Conclusion, Rereading Bessie Head
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

"In Conversation with Bessie Head is a response to Bessie Head's lifelong rejection of any form of labelling. Mary Lederer addresses Head's confrontation with the restrictive nature of power by emphasising that a reader who is willing to open up to her texts does not gain mastery of them, but rather self-insight. In an interplay between Head's voice and her own subjective and varying reader responses, Lederer moves to the core of Head's philosophy and unfolds the many layers of her writing. The extensive use of quotations enhances the conversational element." --Gillian Stead Eilersen, author of Bessie Head: Thunder Behind Her Ears (1995)

"In Conversation with Bessie Head is an intense, moving-and sometimes maddening-engagement with an elusive author. But it stays remarkably faithful to the Bessie Head with whom I worked and struggled, especially in its evocations of Bessie's deeply felt spirituality. This radical recasting of the Head mystique-at once personal and scholarly-is a boon and a challenge to Bessie's many devoted readers." --Tom Holzinger, writer and Bessie Head confidant

From the Publisher