Emerging Perspectives on Bessie Head

ISBN: 1592210740

Author: Ibrahim, Huma

Condition: New

This long-awaited anthology covers new thoughts and theories on the eminent and controversial writer, Bessie Head. Ever since her death in 1986, at the early age of forty-nine, Head has continued to capture our political, historical, and social imagination. This anthology contains current research and opinions being discussed worldwide, including new scholarship emerging from four continents, Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. The first group of essays engages issues of biography/autobiography in Bessie Heads work, dispelling as well as reinstituting the myth of the "other" womans auto/biography. The anthology ends with essays that discuss Heads influence on the canon of African literature, especially South Africas, by engaging Heads own political position as she navigated exile and teasing out her relationship with canonical British literature. Some essays also examine Heads posthumous publications, and in one of the essays, she is compared to the well-known African writer, Ama Ata Aidoo. The complexities of Heads style and topics are emerging slowly, and this anthology is only one of many that will continue to engage the dynamic realm of her life and work.