Writing a Life in Epistolic Form: Bessie Head’s Letters

Abstract

In this article Bessie Head’s letters – mainly those published in the two collections, Vigne’s A Gesture of Belonging (1991) and Cullinan’s Imaginative Trespasser (2005) along with extracts from her letters quoted in Eilersen’s biography of Head, Thunder Behind Her Ears (1995) – are used to suggest that in these texts we have a broken or intermittent autobiography. As the quotations illustrate, Head’s published letters (almost all dating from her Botswana years) demonstrate certain recurrent patterns: particularly her perceptions of social exclusion and the psychic strategy of sur-mounting these obstacles to make of them her vantage point from which to observe and evaluate the human limitations and possibilities of her time and place – but widely seen, hence the image of living “on an horizon” that she wished to invoke in the autobiography she had intended writing.

    Because of Head’s relative social isolation in Botswana, the letters afford her the opportunity of constituting a self in epistolic representations – a self that is framed by a collectivity with which she often feels herself to be at odds, but in relation to which she nevertheless needs to place herself and define her role. As the letters recall her experiences they become the opportunities to represent and re-imagine these events; to articulate, re-evaluate and shape her own arduously achieved ideas.

Opsomming

In hierdie artikel word Bessie Head se gepubliseerde briewe – meestal die wat in die twee versamelings, Vigne se A Gesture of Belonging (1991) en Cullinan se Imagin-ative Trespasser (2005), tesame met uittreksels uit haar briewe in Eilersen se biografie van Head, Thunder behind Her Ears (1995) – gebruik om te suggereer dat hierdie tekste van Head ’n onderbroke outobiografie is. Soos die aanhalings illustreer, word daar in Head se briewe (feitlik almal uit haar Botswana-jare) sekere herhalende patrone geïllustreer: veral haar waarnemings van sosiale uitsluiting en die psigiese strategie om bo hierdie struikelblokke uit te styg en van hulle haar uitkyktoring te maak vanwaar sy die menslike beperkings en moontlikhede van haar tyd en plek kan bespeur en evalueer – maar wyd gesien, daarom haar beeld van ’n lewe op ’n horison wat sy in haar beplande (maar ongeskrewe) outobiografie wou gebruik.

    Weens Head se relatiewe sosiale isolasie in Botswana gee haar briewe haar die geleentheid om ’n self in epistoliese vorm te konstrueer – ’n self wat geraam word deur ’n kollektiwiteit waarmee sy haarself dikwels haaks bevind, maar in verhouding waartoe sy nogtans haar plek moet vind en haar rol moet definieer. Dermate hierdie briewe haar ondervindings in herinnering bring, skep hulle die geleentheid vir Head om hierdie gebeure weer daar te stel en te herverbeel; om haar eie moeisaam gekonstrueerde idees te her-evalueer en te vorm.