When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head
I must confess I have a faible for authors in danger to be forgotten (and faultlessly so). One of them is Bessie Head. Her biography alone is remarkable: the daughter of a rich white lady from South Africa and a black man who was a servant or worker of some kind, born at a time when this was totally not accepted (1937). As an adult she fled to Botswana and became, as a woman, the most prominent writer of that country. All her life she has been quite poor and she died when not even 50.
I discovered her writing long time ago in a collection of short stories called “Perlen Afrikas”, where a story from her book “Tales of Tenderness and Power” was included. This one and one by Charles Mungoshi took my breath away. Sadly “Tales of Tenderness and Power” is very hard to get nowadays, so I suggest her first - and one of her best known - novels, “When Rain Clouds Gather”, which was reprinted recently, so should be easy to buy.
So vote for this and you’ll be able to impress all those who have never read anything by a Botswana author 😃.
First suggested: July 2016
Supporter(s): Andrei, Nadya, Karina, Nela