Those who have expanded our horizons.
The stuff of legends.

Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner
24 March 1855 - 11 December 1920

Olive Schreiner rose to international fame as the first major South African writer of fiction, as an eloquent advocate of feminism, socialism, pacifism and free thought, as a trenchant critic of British imperialism and racism. Perhaps best known for her novel 'The Story of an African Farm', Schreiner wrote political and social treatises as well as allegories and short stories.

She was born into a poor family of a Boer father and English mother, the ninth of 12 children. She lived a life of incredible hardship: her father was a missionary of implacable religious zeal and her mother aggressively attempted to maintain a European sensibility as the family nomadically wandered from mission to mission throughout the Transvaal. Schreiner was self-educated; her early influences included the philosophers Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, and the naturalist Charles Darwin

It was through such reading that Schreiner developed her progressive outlook on life - she rejected the accepted stereotypical gender roles and espoused an equality of shared labour between men and women. She also, at 15, rejected her family's religion. The conflict between her convictions and beliefs was also a major factor in the onset of severe depression which badgered Schreiner throughout her life.

In 1874 Schreiner started working full time as a governess - she wrote during her free time. For the next seven years she worked for five different wealthy Afrikaner families in the Cape Colony. Eventually, with the help of her friend Mary Brown (an active British liberal-feminist), she set sail for England to fulfil her dreams of training as a nurse and getting her novels published. Unfortunately, the asthma she had developed during time spent on the Kimberley diamond fields became chronic in England and was too debilitating for her to enter medical training.

In 1882, publishers Chapman and Hall accepted the semi-autobiographical novel "Story of an African Farm". It was published the following year under a pseudonym, Ralph Irons, because of a contemporary prejudice against women authors. The book won international recognition as the first realistic description of life in South Africa, but there was also significant controversy over its strong, progressive views about marriage and religion. Olive Schreiner was able to reveal her true identity as the book's author in the second edition, published in 1891.

Following the critical acclaim for her book, Schreiner was quickly absorbed into the company of several prominent young socialists including Eleanor Marx - the daughter of Karl Marx, W. E. Gladstone, George Bernard Shaw, and Edward Carpenter.

Due to the increasing chronic state of her asthma Schreiner returned to South Africa in 1889, settling in the clear-aired Karoo at the town of Matjiesfontein. Schreiner's brother, William, was attorney general in Cecil John Rhodes' government (William later became prime minister of the Cape Colony), and through him she developed a friendship with Rhodes. She initially became a passionate acolyte of Cecil Rhodes. However, Rhodes' imperialistic convictions led to a bitter dispute with Olive Schreiner. The predatory aspects of Rhodes' imperialist philosophy - his most famous statement was, "I prefer land to niggers" - totally disenchanted her.

On 24 February 1894 Schreiner married Samuel "Cron" Cronwright, a South African ostrich farmer. Cronwright seemed to share her convictions and encouraged her to continue writing. Schreiner retained her maiden name, and Samuel took the joint surname Cronwright-Schreiner. On 30 April 1895 Schreiner gave birth to a daughter who died only a few hours later. As with the death of her younger sister many years before, Schreiner became severely depressed. Her relationship with Cronwright started to deteriorate and they began to spend time apart.

Schreiner's asthma was getting worse and it was decided (by Cronwright) that she should move to Johannesburg - claiming that the increase in altitude (Johannesburg is at approx. 1,763 m) would be good for her health. The Schreiners entered Johannesburg as celebrities, with easy access to public figures including the Boer President Paul Kruger.

When the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) broke out, the English burned her house with all her manuscripts (including the first, long version of 'Women and Labour'), and sent her to a concentration camp for several years, because of her public support of the Afrikaner cause. After the war, she formed the Women's Enfranchisement League in Cape Town in 1908 and reconstructed the book that would make her internationally famous, 'Women and Labour', in 1911. This book became the bible of the women's emancipation movement in England and America in the 1910's, 1920's, and 1930's. Schreiner, however, never really lived to see the immense influence she would have.
 
Many years of chronic asthma had resulted in Olive Schreiner developing a heart condition. In 1914 she set out to travel to Italy for medical treatment, but the declaration of war caused her to divert to England. Schreiner remained there throughout the First World War, championing the rights of conscientious objectors and working on a new book which examined pacifism within a developing feminist and socialist moral framework.

In autumn 1920, convinced that her death was imminent, Schreiner returned to South Africa.
 

A few months later she died quietly in a hotel bedroom in Wynberg, Cape Town, of a heart attack. At her request she was buried with her daughter and dog in a stone tomb on a mountain in the Karoo – she had bought the land at Buffels Hoek, near Cradock, for this purpose. Thousands lined the railway track when her body was taken there for burial.

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