I'm always fascinated with small books, by small I mean volume, that contain so much in them and Maru is one such book.

Maru, set in rural Botswana, is the tale of an orphaned girl Margaret, who belonging to the Masarwa tribe, a tribe mistreated, enslaved and considered subhuman, experiences life, love and art even at the face of discrimination.

There's a quote from the book that really struck home:
"How universal was the language of oppression! They had said of the Masarwa what every white man had said of every black man: 'They can't think for themselves. They don't know anything.' The matter never rested there. The stronger man caught hold of the weaker man and made a circus animal out of him, reducing him to a state of misery and subjection and non-humanity."

The capacity for human beings to oppress those they find different from them is limitless as it is stupid. And Bessie Head writes with an elegant hand. ( )

After being quite impressed with The Collector of Treasures, I found this disappointing. The writing simply wasn’t very good (certainly nowhere near as good as in the above collection of short stories). The plot is almost hackneyed: Margaret is an orphan from an almost universally loathed ethnic group in Botswana is adopted and raised by a white woman, educated and given unusual privileges despite the colonial regime—not unlike the author (whose background is both sad and inspiring). She trains to be a teacher and is sent to a rural village where she becomes the love interest subject of a struggle between Maru, the future paramount chief, and Moleka, Maru’s best friend, and a lower-level chief. (Never mind her own thoughts or preferences.) Complicating this is that her best friend in the village, Dikeledi, is herself in love with Moleka. Curiously, none of these three powerful people is troubled or put off by Margaret’s deeply despised ethnicity. One could argue that the book is Head’s attempt to explore the interactions between race, gender, and class. Or Margaret’s struggle to overcome racism. Whether it is these or something else that I completely missed, I simply did not find the book successful or convincing in its treatment of larger issues. I look forward to reading more of Head’s work; she is perceptive and thoughtful. But I cannot recommend this particular volume. ( )

A short novel with a gently unfolding punch. Its overriding theme is racism: how it is maintained and overcome, but it is also an exploration of conflicting personalities; their battles and resolutions. ( )

I recently reviewed the great Alice Walker novel, Temple of my Familiar. In this novel, she mentions an African writer Bessie Head. Most of the time, books and authors mentioned in novels are as fictional as the rest of the story. I had never heard of Bessie, but something in Walker’s description piqued my curiosity. I did a search and found numerous websites devoted to this important African writer.

Bessie Head was born on July 6, 1937, in Natal. She did not know her parents. Her mother was a Scottish woman and her father was an unknown Black South African. As a result of her mixed-race status, she suffered greatly from discrimination by Africans. In January 1956, at age 18, Bessie received a teaching certificate. She immediately began teaching at the Clairwood Coloured School in Durban. In June of 1958, she resigned to become a journalist in Durban. After stints at few newspapers and magazines, she began her own newspaper, The Citizen, which promoted Pan-African views. In 1964, she left South Africa for a teaching job in Bechuanaland Protectorate, in a village called Serowe. In late 1965 she began writing seriously with financial help from some writer friends.

In early 1969, she suffered a mental breakdown and was briefly hospitalized. Surprisingly, this setback had two helpful outcomes. First, the villagers who had resented her now accepted her as crazy and left her alone. She became calm and creative once again. A novel, Rain Clouds was published in New York and London, and it received excellent reviews. With encouragement from new friends, and in a wave of creativity, she began a new novel, Maru, which was published to rave reviews in 1971. Maru won numerous awards in Africa and Europe. She had become Africa’s first great woman writer. Unfortunately, she suffered another breakdown in late 1971 and was again hospitalized.

Once on the road to recovery, she started her most difficult book, A Question of Power. It is an autobiographical novel, using incidents from her early life as well as her recent nightmares. A Question of Power appeared in October 1973 to immediate praise and acclaim.

Question is the first of her works I found. This horrific tale of her breakdowns, nightmares, hallucinations, hospitalization was difficult to read, yet I found myself unable to put it aside. Over the years I have read a few novels depicting mental illness, but Bessie Head’s work tops them all. I frequently found myself stopping, reflecting, re-reading paragraphs, and shaking my head at the inhumanity among members of the human race. This novel is not for the faint of heart.

Maru on the other hand, bears only scant comparison to Question. This award-winning novel tells a story of an orphan, Margaret Cadmore, raised by a white Englishwoman. Margaret is lonely, and she suffers discrimination by the dominant tribe in her village, the Botswanans, which considers Margaret and her people, the Masarwa, as “less than human,” “unable to think and reason,” and “so stupid the only blanket they have is to turn their back to the fire.”

In an interview, Bessie said of Maru, “With all my South African experience, I longed to write an enduring novel on the hideousness of racial prejudice. But I also wanted the book to be so beautiful and so magical that I, as a writer, would long to read and re-read it” (xii).

Some of the Botswanans feel the winds of change coming. Head wrote, “Should [Maru] bother to explain the language of the voices of the gods who spoke of tomorrow? That they were opening doors on all sides, for every living thing on earth, that there would be a day when everyone would be free and no one the slave of another?” (49).

Enduring and magical are two apt words to describe this work. Her lyrical descriptions of the people, the village, her friends – and those who fought against her – are as memorable as any novel I have ever read.

--Jim, 11/9/13 ( )

This short novel takes the reader into the remote village of Dilepe in Botswana, where racial prejudice is rife and people have difficulty accepting a young Masarwa – considered the lowest group of black people – into their midst.

She is Margaret Cadmore. Her mother died at childbirth leaving her to be raised by the English wife of a missionary, Margaret Cadmore, who didn’t bother to name the child. So they share a name.

The little girl has grown into a distinguished young lady who has just obtained a teacher’s diploma, and enters the village of Dilepe to start teaching at the primary school. At first everyone is taken by the dignified young woman, but as soon as they learn she is a Masarwa, all hell breaks loose as racial prejudice sets in and threatens to divide the society.

Maru is the future paramount chief, revered by all. He has a deep, lifelong friendship with Moleka. Both these men are notorious in the Dilepe village for their love affairs, and both men are immediately and acutely drawn to the young Margaret. And so we’re drawn into a love triangle of dramatic proportions.

This is a beautifully written book with many light, magical moments strewn throughout the text. This is one I recommend, but I've been told that her “When Rain Clouds Gather” is better. ( )