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Critical Essays on Bessie Head
Maxine Sample
Book Code: GM1557
ISBN: 0-313-31557-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-31557-2
160 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 9/30/2003
List Price: $75.00 (UK Sterling Price: £41.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Series Title: Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies
Series Number: 205
Reviews:
  • [T]imely and admirable....Recommended. College and university libraries serving students and scholars at all levels.
    —Choice     May 2004
  • [A] nicely balanced set of eight studies....The balance works well, alternating some deep textual and theoretical readings with some finely researched pieces that illuminate little known areas of Bessie Head's life and influences....[t]his is a worthy and valuable addition to the body of scholarship on Bessie Head's work and times, and Maxine Sample and her collaborators should be commended.
    —African Studies Review     April 2005
  • [O]pens the way to a more detailed study of her life and work, providing annotated references to a wide range of critical and biographical works.
    —International Journal of African Historical Studies     2005
  • [A]n impressive collection of essays on Bessie Head.
    —Research in African Literatures     2005
Description: Through narrative and rhetorical strategies that subvert genre and challenge the discourse of race and gender, black South African woman writer Bessie Head creates alternative healing spaces that empower and enoble the marginalized, provide potential for transcendence and self-creation, and render ineffective the power of language to subjugate. This book features new critical material on her life and works and explores the techniques she uses to inscribe an idealistic vision in response to the psychic fragmentation and rootlessness she experienced as an exile. The traumatized characters of When Rain Clouds Gather reflect Head's own use of agriculture and writing as means of coping with her suffering. Maru is a radical subversion of the romance genre, arguing for black women's need for space as creators. A Question of Power employs madness as a potential site of resistance to official constructions of reality. Viewed from the Lacanian association of the incest taboo and the entry into language, The Cardinals proposes a cosmic realm as an alternative to the categorical edicts of patriarchal language. And endowed with a didactic voice, the narrator of The Collector of Treasures claims the authority of several hundred groups to critique the patriarchal society she views. The contributors to this volume draw on new biographical information as well as Head's private papers.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Artist in Exile: The Life of Bessie Head by Maxine Sample
  • Agriculture and Healing: Transforming Space, Transforming Trauma in Bessie Head's When Rain Clouds Gather by Maureen Fielding
  • Space: An Experiential Perspective: Bessie Head's When Rain Clouds Gather by Maxine Sample
  • Bessie Head's Maru:Writing after the End of Romance by Colette Guldimann
  • "A Peculiar Shuttling Movement": Madness, Passing, and Trespassing in Bessie Head's A Question of Power by Helen Kapstein
  • The Cardinals: Reclaiming Language through the "Permanent Revolution of Language": Literature by Colette Guldimann
  • The Didactic Judgment of a Woman Writer: Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures by Loretta Stec
  • Bessie Head: A Bibliographic Essay by Maxine Sample
  • Notes
  • Index
  • Contributors
LC Card Number: 2002035223
LCC Class: PR9369
Dewey Class: 823
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