SOURCE: Thorpe, Michael. “Treasures of the Heart: The Short Stories of Bessie Head.” World Literature Today 57, no. 3 (summer 1983): 414–16.

In the following essay, Thorpe surveys the defining characteristics of Head's The Collector of Treasures, describing the stories as “rooted, folkloristic tales woven from the fabric of village life and intended to entertain and enlighten, not to engage the modern close critic.”

My title and principal subject are drawn from Bessie Head's short-story collection The Collector of Treasures (1977); her novels have been admirably appraised elsewhere.¹ The stories lend themselves especially well to an understanding of Head's aims as a writer. Their subtitle, and Other Botswana Village Tales, indicates her kinship with the village storyteller of the oral tradition. Hers are rooted, folkloristic tales woven from the fabric of village life and intended to entertain and enlighten, not to engage the modern close critic. They are subtly didactic: it seems apt...