Monumental … a wonderful read. —Stephen Gray, Mail & Guardian

In July 2007, the acclaimed writer Bessie Head would have turned 70 years old. Her friends, colleagues andliterary critics honoured her with a series of conferences, new books and theses and the founding of a permanent Bessie Head Heritage Trust to guarantee the future of her house and literary papers. Wits University Press took the opportunity to repackage and republish this excellent biography and it appears with new – never before published – photographs of Bessie Head’s life.

Gillian Stead Eilersen studied at the former University of Natal and Odense University, Denmark, where she now lectures in the Department of English.