Margaret Cadmore, an orphaned Masarwa girl, comes to Dilepe to teach, only to discover that in this remote Botswana village her people are treated as outcasts. '… change the world on the basis of love of mankind.' Bessie Head



Maru is the moving tale of an orphaned Masarwa girl who goes to teach in a remote village in Botswana where her own people are kept as slaves. Her presence polarises a community which does not see Masarwa people as human, and condemns her to the lonely life of an outcast. Bessie Head was one of the best-known writers in Africa, whose works were mostly inspired by her own traumatic life experiences as an outcast in Apartheid South African society. This edition of Maru includes an introduction by Stephen Gray, former Head of English at the University of Johannesburg.