A01=Mary S. Lederer
Author_Mary S. Lederer
Category=DSA
Category=DSBH5
Category=DSK
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Product details
- ISBN 9781501371431
- Weight: 236g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 24 Dec 2020
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
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).
