August Books 16) The Collector of Treasures, by Bessie Head
An excellent collection of short stories set in Botswana shortly after independence, mostly about women affected by the changes in a colonised and modernising (but pre-AIDS) society: Christianity, traditional religion, education and especially marriage rites and expectations all get critical attention from Head in a set of sharp vignettes, of which the most memorable is perhaps the title piece, about a woman who murders her husband. It is a more gritty, sexy and brutal Botswana than is to be found in the works of Alexander McCall Smith, and feels more realistic too.