Olive Schreiner
From Philosopedia
Schreiner, Olive (24 March 1855 - 11 December 1920)
Schreiner was born in Basutoland (now Lesotho), Africa, the daughter of a German father and an English mother, both working for the London Missionary Society. She was ninth of 12 children, grounded in a strict Calvinist tradition. At the age of 13, she began working as a governess, often in primitive conditions. The Story of an African Farm, which was published in 1883 under the pen-name "Ralph Iron," was written before she was 20. The work describes how her father had been a missionary to the natives of Basutoland and how the harshly pious home had driven her to atheism. The book was so virile that few suspected the author was a woman. Because of its feminist and anti-Christian sentiments, the work was highly controversial.
In it, she wrote,
- But we, wretched unbelievers, we bear our own burdens; we must say, ‘I myself did it, I. Not God, not Satan; I myself!’
- This thing is certain - he is a fool who says, ‘No man hath said in his heart, There is no God.’
She educated herself, reading scientists and freethinkers. She found work as a governess, then taught at the Kimberley New School. In her free time she began work on a novel about her experiences in South Africa. When she had saved enough money she travelled to Britain in 1881 with the objective of becoming a doctor. Her novel, about two children growing up in the African veldt, has been called a South African Wuthering Heights. The sections detailing the internal struggle of the character Waldo (whose name was a nod at Ralph Waldo Emerson) poignantly describe the struggles she went through over her loss of faith after being raised in strict Calvinism. The novel, where nonbelief runs as a constant thread, caught the eye of reader George Meredith, was highly acclaimed upon publication, and remains in circulation.
A champion of liberalism, she met her husband, Samuel Cronwright, in Africa in 1892. This was before the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899, and unfortunately she suffered the loss of her first child, a tragedy that is written about in her later fiction). She opposed the colonialist, Cecil Rhodes, as well as England's involvement in the Anglo-Boer War. Her husband wrote her biography in 1923, one that described her political activism in South Africa.
In England, she had become friends with radicals such as Eleanor Marx, and had a long-term correspondence with Havelock Ellis. After returning to Africa, she was at one time placed under martial law and her home was burned down by whites incensed over her position on race. A feminist and suffragist, she was a pacifist during World War I. Edward Carpenter wrote of her,
- I have seen her shake her little fist at the Lord in heaven and curse him down from his throne.
Schreiner also wrote The Search for Truth (1889), Dreams (1891), Trooper Peter Halket (1897), and Woman and Labour (1911).
In August 1920, she returned to South Africa. Four months later she died suddenly on 10th December 1920. She was buried without religious ceremony next to her daughter at Buffels Kop, overlooking the Karoo Desert.
{BDF; CE; FFRF; GS; RAT; RE; WWS}
