orig. Bessie Amelia Emery
born July 6, 1937, Pietermaritzburg, S.Af.
died April 17, 1986, Serowe, Bots.
South African-born Botswanan writer.
Born of an illegal union between a white mother and a black father, she suffered rejection and alienation from an early age. She described the contradictions and shortcomings of pre-and postcolonial African society in morally didactic novels and stories, including When Rain Clouds Gather (1969), Maru (1971), A Question of Power (1973), The Collector of Treasures (1977), Serowe, Village of the Rainwind (1981), A Bewitched Crossroad (1984), and The Cardinals (1993).