BESSIE HEAD

1937 nasce in Sudafrica in Pietermaritzburg
1948 vince il national party
1949 group areas act, immorality act, population registration act, suppression of communism act
1960 massacro di Sharpeville
1962 conosce Harold Head
1964 chiede il passaporto ma le viene rifiutato va in esilio
1979 ottiene la cittadinanza di Rodesia dove era in esilio
1986 muore  per epatite virale

Epilogue - A Poem to Serowe

These I have loved:

The hours I spent collecting together my birds, my pathways,
my sunsets, and shared them, with everyone;
The small boys of this village and their homemade wire cars;
The windy nights, when the vast land mass outside my door
simulates the dark roar of the ocean.
- And those mysteries: that one bird call at dawn - that single,
solitary outdoor fireplace far in the bush that always
captivates my eye. Who lives so far away in the middle of
nowhere? The wedding parties and beer parties of my next-door
neighbours that startle with their vigour and rowdiness;
The very old women of the village who know so well how to
plough with a hoe; their friendly motherliness and insistent
greetings as they pass my fence with loads of firewood or
water buckets on their heads;
My home at night and the hours I spent outside it watching
the yellow glow of the candle-light through the curtains;
The hours I spent inside it in long, solitary thought.
These small joys were all I had, with nothing beyond them,
they were indulged in over and over again, like my favourite books.