A Discussion of Bessie Head's Maru

Bessie Amelia Emery Head was a South African writer who was born in Pietermaritzburg, although she left South Africa and found her roots in Botswana. What began in her early novels as a search for freedom and dignity ended as an affirmation of her African heritage and an attempt to make that heritage available for others.

She wrote novels, short fiction and autobiographical works that are infused with spiritual questioning and reflection. Her seminal work, Maru, (1971) centres around an orphaned Masarwa girl who goes to a remote Botswanan community, called Dilepe, to teach. There, she discovers that her own people are treated as outcasts. It is a story of a flawed world and the attempts of two mythic people, Maru and Margaret Cadmore, to restore it to its former perfection. It is also a love story—Margaret, the loathed Masarwa, opens the hearts of Moleka and Dikeledi—as well as a political story—Margaret animates Maru’s political vision with love and art.

On the 5th of September, lead by Sreddy Yen, we got to discuss just what made Maru such a phenomenal tale (in such few words), and Bessie Head such a sincere, impactful author. If you haven't read it yet, this is your sign to:

Letter from Bessie Head to her editor at the time, Giles Gordon, in which she discusses her love for Maru, 'The whole book is sheer music in words.'

Gillian Stead Eilersen, author of Bessie Head: Thunder under her ears, explains Head's personal encounters with racism in Botswana, and those of her son Howard's at school, as a key factor in the creation of Maru, where she creates her own narrative, resolving the racial tension within it. 

Head's philosophies on novel writing, which lead her to writing rich, complex and nuanced characters like those in Maru - neither good nor bad, containing multitudes and moving parts.