Biography: Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner

Olive Schreiner, the first white South African novelist of consequence, achieved international fame with her book The Story of an African Farm. She was also an outspoken advocate of feminism, socialism and pacifism and a critic of European imperialism. Her published works include social and political treatises, allegorical tales and short stories, as well as the (once) famous feminist credo Women and Labour.

Schreiner, the ninth of twelve children, was born into a poor missionary family at Wittenbergen, Basutoland (now Lesotho) on 24 March 1855. She was largely self-educated and her early influences included the philosophers Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, and the naturalist Charles Darwin. Read more about the life of Olive Schreiner...