Seven books by writers from Botswana, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with When Rain Clouds Gather and A Question of Power.
Botswana's best-known literary voice is Bessie Head, a South African-born writer who made her home in the village of Serowe. Her When Rain Clouds Gather has a refugee join a farming cooperative in the fictional village of Golema Mmidi, and Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind is an oral history in which villagers describe the Bamangwato capital's chiefs, traditions and changes in their own words.
Setswana, the national language, has a spoken tradition of folktales, proverbs and praise poetry, while English, the official language, is what Head wrote in. Head's fiction is shaped by drought, land and chiefly politics. Unity Dow, a Botswana lawyer and judge, wrote The Screaming of the Innocent, a legal thriller about a missing girl and ritual murder, and Juggling Truths, a novel of a girl growing up amid family pressures, gender roles and changing customs.
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A refugee joins a farming cooperative in the fictional village of Golema Mmidi, showing drought, land, chiefly politics and rural life in 1960s Botswana.
A woman's breakdown unfolds in the village of Motabeng, drawing on Bessie Head's exile life in Serowe and Botswana's social and racial tensions.
A story of prejudice between the Batswana and the marginalised Masarwa (San), set in a Botswana village during the 1960s.
An oral-history portrait of Serowe, the Bamangwato capital, covering chiefs, history, traditional life and change through villagers' own voices.
A rural Botswana family faces a mother's illness, belief in witchcraft and the pull between traditional and modern life.
A legal thriller about a missing girl and ritual murder in a Botswana village, exposing class, power and custom.
A novel of a girl growing up in a Botswana village, showing oral tradition, family, gender roles and changing customs.
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