Joyce Avrech Berkman

Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) rose to international fame as the first major white South African writer of fiction, as an eloquent advocate of feminism, socialism, pacifism and free thought, as a trenchant critic of British imperialism and racism. Perhaps best known for her novel The Story of an African Farm, Schreiner wrote political and social treatises as well as allegories and short stories. Her most influential feminist work, Woman and Labour, was touted as the Bible of the early twentieth-century women's movement, a rare honour for its time.

This well-crafted interdisciplinary study examines Schreiner's lifelong struggle to heal the maladies afflicting the Victorian social anatomy and its moral and intellectual dimensions. Using both known and hitherto unmined sources, Joyce Avrech Berkman probes the connection between Schreiner's thought and her primary personal experiences, all within the context of the social and political climate of her day.

ISBN 1-870495-10-1   £16.95