Here, she grew up with a strict foster mother, Nelly Heathcote, and attended the local Catholic Church and primary school.

[4] When Bessie was 12, after she had completed four years of primary school education, the authorities moved her to St. Monica's Home for Coloured Girls, an Anglican boarding-school in Durban.

The authorities abruptly told her that she was the daughter of a white woman, not Nelly Heathcote, and that she would not be allowed to return to her former home for the Christmas holidays.

Finally, at the beginning of 1956, the court declared her an adult; she was awarded a provisional teaching certificate; and she accepted a job as a teacher in a coloured primary school in Durban.

[5] During this time she developed close friendships with several of the white staff of St. Monica's, as well as several members of the "Indian" community, and her interest in non-Christian religions flourished, especially Hinduism.

In Cape Town she was suddenly a member of the largest local racial group — Coloured — but one that spoke Afrikaans in its daily life.

She was too dark to join the elite, so she preferred to associate with the workers and underclass in District Six, the large Coloured community that lived on the west side of Table Mountain, not far from the centre.

Between her work and her lodgings in District Six, the young provincial newcomer quickly adopted to the style and pace of the big city.

[4] In 1959, Head moved to Johannesburg to work on Home Post, another of Drum's sister publications; she was given her own column and a steady salary.

But her life-changing experiences at this time were that she came into contact with black nationalist political writings, especially those of the Pan-Africanists George Padmore and Robert Sobukwe.

Head joined Sobukwe's Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) a few weeks before that party led a fateful mass protest in Soweto, Sharpeville, and other black townships.

In great frustration Bessie left Cape Town at the end of 1963 to live with her mother-in-law near Pretoria, taking Howard with her.

[4] In 1964, abandoning her life in South Africa, she moved with her young son to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) seeking asylum,[10] having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics.

Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg.

[11] Her early death in Serowe in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor.

[12][13] Many of Bessie Head's works are set in Serowe, including the novels When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971), and A Question of Power (1973).

[15] Head's work focused on the everyday life of ordinary people and their role in larger African political struggles.

Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community).

[8] In 1977, Head attended the University of Iowa's International Writing Program, to which only a select number of writers from all over the world are invited.

[8][18] In 2003, she was posthumously awarded the South African Order of Ikhamanga in Gold for her "exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.