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A Bewitched Crossroad: An African Saga
198 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1986
3 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Bessie Head
48 books205 followersBessie Emery Head, though born in South Africa, is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer.
Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to give birth to Bessie without the neighbours knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings.
In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, 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. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's "villages" (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana.
Her early death 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.
Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to give birth to Bessie without the neighbours knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings.
In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, 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. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's "villages" (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana.
Her early death 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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 6, 2017
Has it ever happened to you that, you read a book.
You read you read you read you struggle to put it down and if it's down it's all you're thinking about.
Then after the "yoh!" that comes after the final sentence, you cry yourself to sleep three nights in a row even though you didn't cry while reading and rereading the book while reading it? Tjo. Witchery indeed.
To quote parts of what still haunts me like the ghosts of Manthatisi and Lobengula:
" 'If you want the black man's land, take it.
'If you want the black man's labour, take it.'
'If the canting niggers won't work, horsewhip them.'
I have taken everything from them but the air.' "
Head goes on to relate how,
"...No restrictions were placed on an individual settler's greed for these commodities..."
"...Cecil John Rhodes, his political career in ruins, could still be seen on the battlefield, gleefully counting dead corpses..."
The very Rhodes whose fall is still being resisted even decades and decades after his death and black lives still being lost because of him.
I suspect Bessie Head published had A Bewitched Crossroad as a novel because it would not have seen the light of day otherwise back in 1984.
I mean, who covers 300 years in one book, researches from and references over 30 big books in a 200 page supposed novel for accuracy to the T, the kind of research that puts Google and all popular search engines to shame.
I'm still wondering which part of is meant to be fictious because the events, which cover the 1800s in Southern Africa and go on till 1960-something also going far back as 1652 to detail the happenings in the Cape Colony and how land was cheated and forced out of the Khoikhoi people's hands, are real. All of that bratality to slaves shipped in, it is things that happened.
Even the protagonist Sebina, is created from someone who lived and walked. And he spends most of the time in the book, observing, listening, learning.
I kept wishing to wake Bessie Head up to ask, "But how did you come across this, and that, and that too? How in one lifetime in the early 80s? Please wake up and educate me."
The saddest thing about A Bewitched Crossroad by Bessie Head I think, is that it is out of print and very hard to find even second-hand.
I sincerely hope that libraries have this book because it's the best account of Sourth African wars and settler looting I've read.
You read you read you read you struggle to put it down and if it's down it's all you're thinking about.
Then after the "yoh!" that comes after the final sentence, you cry yourself to sleep three nights in a row even though you didn't cry while reading and rereading the book while reading it? Tjo. Witchery indeed.
To quote parts of what still haunts me like the ghosts of Manthatisi and Lobengula:
" 'If you want the black man's land, take it.
'If you want the black man's labour, take it.'
'If the canting niggers won't work, horsewhip them.'
I have taken everything from them but the air.' "
Head goes on to relate how,
"...No restrictions were placed on an individual settler's greed for these commodities..."
"...Cecil John Rhodes, his political career in ruins, could still be seen on the battlefield, gleefully counting dead corpses..."
The very Rhodes whose fall is still being resisted even decades and decades after his death and black lives still being lost because of him.
I suspect Bessie Head published had A Bewitched Crossroad as a novel because it would not have seen the light of day otherwise back in 1984.
I mean, who covers 300 years in one book, researches from and references over 30 big books in a 200 page supposed novel for accuracy to the T, the kind of research that puts Google and all popular search engines to shame.
I'm still wondering which part of is meant to be fictious because the events, which cover the 1800s in Southern Africa and go on till 1960-something also going far back as 1652 to detail the happenings in the Cape Colony and how land was cheated and forced out of the Khoikhoi people's hands, are real. All of that bratality to slaves shipped in, it is things that happened.
Even the protagonist Sebina, is created from someone who lived and walked. And he spends most of the time in the book, observing, listening, learning.
I kept wishing to wake Bessie Head up to ask, "But how did you come across this, and that, and that too? How in one lifetime in the early 80s? Please wake up and educate me."
The saddest thing about A Bewitched Crossroad by Bessie Head I think, is that it is out of print and very hard to find even second-hand.
I sincerely hope that libraries have this book because it's the best account of Sourth African wars and settler looting I've read.
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October 1, 2022i tried my best to get this book, but tired off. any possibility?
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October 13, 2025It took a lot for me to get through this. A lot of these chapters were so gut-wrenching I considered not finishing it all. A lot of history can feel impersonal and almost abstract, but when it hits to close to home you can't help but feel it.
White nations descended on Southern Africa and could only think of riches. Indigenous folk were merely obstacles to overcome through a multitude of ways which included lying, stealing and killing. All for land that they had no respect for.
There's a lot of heinous lines said in this book, but I can't help ruminating over Sebina wondering if people need so much stuff to live. Maybe because I've wondered the same.
Bessie Head took on a huge challenge of condensing this complex history that took course over several decades and centuries and did so successfully. Part of why I even finished this is because of how grounded everything felt. She manages to showcase the human cost and ecological damage necessary to facilitate the journey to immense wealth.
I got this from the library, but if I ever manage to purchase it you can bet I will do so.
White nations descended on Southern Africa and could only think of riches. Indigenous folk were merely obstacles to overcome through a multitude of ways which included lying, stealing and killing. All for land that they had no respect for.
There's a lot of heinous lines said in this book, but I can't help ruminating over Sebina wondering if people need so much stuff to live. Maybe because I've wondered the same.
Bessie Head took on a huge challenge of condensing this complex history that took course over several decades and centuries and did so successfully. Part of why I even finished this is because of how grounded everything felt. She manages to showcase the human cost and ecological damage necessary to facilitate the journey to immense wealth.
I got this from the library, but if I ever manage to purchase it you can bet I will do so.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews