Chapter 3, Retrospect, Southern Africa and Beyond, 1979-1986 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 3 follows after Head acquires her citizenship in Botswana. In "Notes from a quiet backwater II" Head expresses a need for a quiet, small life. She wants her life to consist in small, individual life drama. Her earlier work is about her personal responses to challenges. Her work his influenced by the Hindu belief in rebirth and reincarnation and she begins to see her relationship to Africa on these grounds. The African experience of oppression helps her to realize that the oppressed can easily become the oppressor. Thus Head's earlier work focuses on the anxiety of making the right personal choices.

As Head's experience of oppression becomes more distant, she starts to focus on more social and outward-looking topics. South African history fascinates her; it is in some ways...