"From Publishers Weekly : Originally published in 1980 and long out of print, this fine work illuminates Schreiner's life and major writings through a portrayal of her "conscious struggles for self-definition" as a novelist, feminist and political activist. Born in 1855 to English missionaries working in Africa, hers was a lonely, self-educated childhood. She worked as a governess during the late 1870s, and when she sailed to England for medical training in 1881, had with her the manuscripts of three novels, including The Story of an African Farm, her best known. She was quickly taken up by London's intellectual circles; Havelock Ellis and Eleanor Marx were among her closest friends. On her return to Africa, Schreiner supported the Boer cause and took what she herself called an "almost painfully intense interest" in empire-builder Cecil Rhodes, although she quickly became disillusioned with both. Abhorring treatment of blacks as an "engine of labour," she became an outspoken advocate f

A concise yet comprehensive survey of the reasons why South West Africa (now Namibia) is a vital area of the African continent. The author traces the course of over eighty years' economic and political exploitation of the African population by a succession of white powers, from the original British and Dutch traders to the Nationalist regime begun in 1948. She argues that the ironic tragedy whereby a League of Nations mandate became an instrument of oppression may yet become a source of hope.

"A personal account of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa chronicles the author's imprisonment in the early 1960s for her participation in the opposition movement of the African National Congress."--Amazon.com description.