When Rain Clouds Gather And Maru

When Rainclouds Gather: Escaping South Africa and his troubled past, Makehaya crosses the border to Botswana, in the hope of leading a peaceful, purposeful life. In the village of Golema Mmidi he meets Gilbert, a charismatic Englishman who is trying to modernise farming methods to benefit the community. The two outsiders join forces, but their task is fraught with hazards: opposition from the corrupt chief, the pressures of tradition, and the unrelenting climate ever threaten to bring tragedy. Maru: Margaret, an orphan from a despised tribe, has lived her life under the loving protection of a missionary's wife. She has only to open her mouth to cause confusion, for her education and English accent do not fit her looks. When she accepts her first teaching post, in a remote village, Margaret is befriended by Dikeledi, sister of Maru the chief-in-waiting. Despite making influential friends, Margaret faces prejudice even from the children she teaches, and her presence causes Maru and his best friend - also Dikeledi's lover - to become sworn enemies.

When Rain Clouds Gather and Maru are fairy tales about the transformations that love can wreak. And they transform love into a force to be thankful for

Bessie Emery Head (1937-1986) was born in South Africa, and considered Botswana's most influential writer. She was the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. Her key works include When Rain Clouds Gather (1969), A Question of Power (1973) and Tales of Tenderness and Power (1991). In the 1950s and 1960s, she was also a teacher and then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964, she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics.