Okay, I might be rather sour in admitting it – I am an old
African reader and critic who has relished our early short stories (fiction)
for decades. Stories written by the continent’s best writers from all around.
Yes, stories penned by Achebe and Cyprian Ekwensi of Nigeria, Es'kia Mphahlele of South Africa, and Marechera of Zimbabwe. And of course magnificent stories by female writers like Ama Aidoo of Ghana, and Flora Nwapa of Nigeria. And in recent times great short stories by Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) and Maxwell Perkins Kanemanyanga of Zimbabwe.
Bessie Head of Botswana, if you wish, has been an exalted African female writer for donkey years, a superb writer. Her short stories here in this work show her empathy and sympathy with the rural women in the hinterland
In this collection, the title story, Collector of treasures, certainly stands out: and for me, Life too. The horrific castration of a man - by 'his' woman, is the theme of the title story. We see the hapless plight of women in this community, and quite frankly many men just regard them as sex objects, blithely, irresponsibly.
During her lifetime, author Bessie Head in an interview, actually damned such men as 'evil'. And in the story, Life, a man kills a woman in the community that he is fascinated and dazzled with: Life clearly stands out like a sore thumb!
Life, from the city, is free, 'sophisticated', and brings quasi-prostitution to the very conservative community... things of course slither towards melancholic disaster...
One might as well add in conclusion here that I am enamoured with a comment on this work by The Tribune which wrote inter alia: “Bessie Head s short stories have an extraordinary simplicity and breadth of vision, a tolerant acceptance of things as they are, which if applied by a European writer inside the structure of a European novel, would cause her to be hailed as a new humanist saint, a Tolstoy, a Gorki.”
- Eric Malome
Yes, stories penned by Achebe and Cyprian Ekwensi of Nigeria, Es'kia Mphahlele of South Africa, and Marechera of Zimbabwe. And of course magnificent stories by female writers like Ama Aidoo of Ghana, and Flora Nwapa of Nigeria. And in recent times great short stories by Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) and Maxwell Perkins Kanemanyanga of Zimbabwe.
Bessie Head of Botswana, if you wish, has been an exalted African female writer for donkey years, a superb writer. Her short stories here in this work show her empathy and sympathy with the rural women in the hinterland
In this collection, the title story, Collector of treasures, certainly stands out: and for me, Life too. The horrific castration of a man - by 'his' woman, is the theme of the title story. We see the hapless plight of women in this community, and quite frankly many men just regard them as sex objects, blithely, irresponsibly.
During her lifetime, author Bessie Head in an interview, actually damned such men as 'evil'. And in the story, Life, a man kills a woman in the community that he is fascinated and dazzled with: Life clearly stands out like a sore thumb!
Life, from the city, is free, 'sophisticated', and brings quasi-prostitution to the very conservative community... things of course slither towards melancholic disaster...
One might as well add in conclusion here that I am enamoured with a comment on this work by The Tribune which wrote inter alia: “Bessie Head s short stories have an extraordinary simplicity and breadth of vision, a tolerant acceptance of things as they are, which if applied by a European writer inside the structure of a European novel, would cause her to be hailed as a new humanist saint, a Tolstoy, a Gorki.”
- Eric Malome
Very impressive writer, the late Bessie Head; one of the all-time greats of African Writing.
ReplyDeleteI have always loved short stories too...such a fine introduction to the work of salient writers, I always think. And Bessie Head was one of our best.
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