Head on Head, Metacritically Speaking: Bessie Head's Epistolary Critique of A Question of Power

Abstract

Relatively few readers have had direct access to Bessie Head’s epistolary estate, one of the largest on the African continent, which is housed in the Khama III Memorial Museum in Serowe, Botswana. This vast collection of exchanges with writers, lay readers, institutions, publishers, agents, and students includes correspondents from five continents over a period of two decades. In her letters Head discusses geo-politics, philosophy, literary texts, autobiographical experience, the journey of the soul, and the various stages of her own works: inspiration, creation, production, analysis, reactions to critical reception, and the financial arrangements associated with publication and distribution. Head offers particularly incisive commentary on the various stages of development of A Question of Power as well as complex, hybrid readings of the novel with significant implications for Head scholarship. On one hand, Head invests significant energy in explicating what she sees is an under-...