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A review by raulbime
Maru by Bessie Head
4.0
I'm always fascinated with small books, by small I mean volume, that contain so much in them and Maru is one such book.
Maru, set in rural Botswana, is the tale of an orphaned girl Margaret, who belonging to the Masarwa tribe, a tribe mistreated, enslaved and considered subhuman, experiences life, love and art even at the face of discrimination.
There's a quote from the book that really struck home:
"How universal was the language of oppression! They had said of the Masarwa what every white man had said of every black man: 'They can't think for themselves. They don't know anything.' The matter never rested there. The stronger man caught hold of the weaker man and made a circus animal out of him, reducing him to a state of misery and subjection and non-humanity."
The capacity for human beings to oppress those they find different from them is limitless as it is stupid. And Bessie Head writes with an elegant hand.
Maru, set in rural Botswana, is the tale of an orphaned girl Margaret, who belonging to the Masarwa tribe, a tribe mistreated, enslaved and considered subhuman, experiences life, love and art even at the face of discrimination.
There's a quote from the book that really struck home:
"How universal was the language of oppression! They had said of the Masarwa what every white man had said of every black man: 'They can't think for themselves. They don't know anything.' The matter never rested there. The stronger man caught hold of the weaker man and made a circus animal out of him, reducing him to a state of misery and subjection and non-humanity."
The capacity for human beings to oppress those they find different from them is limitless as it is stupid. And Bessie Head writes with an elegant hand.