Bessie Head

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Bessie Head

Bessie Head AKA Bessie Amelia Emery

Born: 6-Jul-1937
Birthplace: Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Died: 17-Apr-1986
Location of death: Serowe, Botswana
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: Multiracial [1]
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Novelist

Nationality: Botswana
Executive summary: A Question of Power

[1] Scottish white mother, black father (illegal under Apartheid).

Mother: Bessie Emery (d. 1943)
Husband: Harold Head (m. 1960, div. 1964, one son)
Son: Howard

University: (Natal Teachers' Senior Certificate, 1957)
Teacher: Clairwood Coloured School

Scottish Ancestry Maternal
Risk Factors: Smoking

Author of books:
When Rain Clouds Gather (1969, novel)
Maru (1971, novel)
A Question of Power (1973, novel)
The Collector of Treasures (1977, short stories)
Serowe: The Village of the Rain-Wind (1981, novel)
A Bewitched Crossroad (1984)
Tales of Tenderness and Power (1990, short stories)
A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings (1990, memoir)
A Gesture of Belonging: Letters from Bessie Head 1965-1979 (1991, letters)

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