This story by Bessie Head is a reimagining of a Botswanan oral folktale in which young lovers who defy tribal customs of premarital chastity and arranged marriage are cast out of their village and mysteriously vanish. This leads to a myth that as punishment for putting the tribal community at risk, a nearby hill opened and swallowed them. The folktale’s message is that a tribe’s well-being relies on members putting personal desires aside and strictly following its traditions and rules. Themes include romantic love vs. arranged marriage, individual choice vs. compliance with cultural traditions, defiance, isolation, punishment.

This story by Bessie Head takes place in Botswana’s “lonely lands” where farming families usually live a poor but contented life in harmony with nature. Every year, when village headmen proclaim the beginning of the cropping season, families relocate from the villages to their “ploughing lands”. The story follows a family who, having endured six years of crippling drought, reach a point in the seventh year where they are faced with a devastating decision… to all perish from starvation, or sacrifice their children to a rain-god. Themes include tradition, man vs. nature, desperation, survival, superstition. ritual murder, cultural conflict, “justice”.

Set in the mid-1990s, this story by Bessie Head explores two aspects of a Botswanan wedding. The first is the rituals observed at the event and how, as a “modern wedding”, a lot of the traditional courtesies had been left out of the planning. The second is the circumstances leading up to the wedding, with the author seemingly inviting readers to judge whether the groom, who is rich in cattle and loved and respected by all who knew him, made the right choice for a bride. Themes include tradition vs. modernity, marriage, education, hubris vs. humility, money and status vs. love.

In this story from Bessie Head, a span of ten political prisoners unites to survive the harsh South African penal system. The main character (Brille) is the oldest and weakest of the group, as reflected in his build, clumsiness, and poor eyesight. Brille compensates for these shortcomings with strength of character and insight. A beating from a new warder helps him see that he entered politics for the wrong reason, and leads to a psychological tug-of-war that he eventually wins, improving things for the whole span. His glasses symbolize both weakness and perceptiveness. Themes include apartheid, dignity, resolve, manipulation, cooperation.