When Rain Clouds Gather

Bessie Head · 1937–1986 · South Africa / Botswana

Why it matters

A South African exile arrives in a poor Botswana village and finds unlikely common cause with a British agricultural expert and a defiant local farmer. Head's warmest novel, written from her own first bruising years of statelessness.

At a glance

A relatively linear pastoral narrative, gentler and more accessible than her later, more fractured work.