Even though in a narrow sense the context of Bessie Head's fiction is Botswana, her novels, preoccupied with themes of political and spiritual exile, racial hatred and the source of corrupting power and authority, reflect in an important and deep way the bitter world of inhumanity and racism which exists throughout South Africa. The physical landscape of Botswana is colored with her own history of exile, race confusion and her search for what she labels in her first novel, When Rain Clouds Gather, an "illusion of freedom."… Head is concerned particularly with the racial question as it pertains to her mixed-blood status. In her novels, When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power, Bessie head seeks to examine the causes of the evil of race prejudice and, concomitantly, to explore potential sources of generosity and goodness.

In trying to unearth the root of racial prejudice, Bessie...