Chapter 1, Beginnings, South Africa, 1937-1964 Summary and Analysis

A Woman Alone is divided into chapters according to three time periods in Bessie Head's life. However, each chapter contains a number of short writings of different genres. They are grouped together by period, not by subject matter or genre type. The first chapter is relatively short, so all the pieces are summarized under the Chapter 1 heading.

In "Notes from a quiet backwater I", Head notes that she grows up knowing none of her relatives, knowing only herself. She is born in a mental hospital in 1937 merely because her father is black and her mother is white. About her father, she knows only that he worked in the family stables and cared for racehorses. At birth, Head is given to a black foster mother that she accepts as her mother but at thirteen...