Join us Celebrate Bessie Head

July 6, 2013 will be the 76th birthday of one of Africa's great authors, Bessie Head. To commemorate the day, some African book bloggers - Mary Okeke of Mary Okeke Reviews, Kinna of KinnaReads & this writer of ImageNations - have decided to celebrate this day by posting items about the author from July 6 to 12, 2013.

Posts could be anything except that it should be about the author: review of her books, quotes from her books, her life, pictures and others. This blogging event is open to all readers.

About Bessie Head: Bessie Amelia Head (1937-1986) never knew her real parents — an unstable white woman and an unknown black man. She was born and raised in apartheid South Africa. There she suffered from poverty, racial segregation, and gender discrimination. She also had to worry about her own "delicate nervous balance".

As a young woman she left South Africa to come to Botswana. She lived the rest of her life in this country, mostly in Serowe. Bit by bit she overcame her many formidable obstacles. One of her passions was letter-writing; she corresponded with hundreds of people from many countries during her life. At the end she was a famous writer known all around the world. Bessie died of hepatitis after a period of heavy drinking in April 1986 in Serowe at the age of 49.

Bessie Head is the author of When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971), & A Question of Power (1974). Books published posthumously include A Woman Alone (1990), Tales of Power and Tenderness (1989), & The Cardinals (1993).

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