Schreiner, Olive (1855-1920), was one of the most distinguished South African writers. She has been acknowledged as a pioneer in her treatment of women and in her fictional use of the African landscape. She was the first colonial writer to be accepted into the London literary world.
Olive Emile Albertina Schreiner was born on March 24, 1855, in Cape Colony, the daughter of a missionary. Largely self-educated, she began writing while working as a governess. By the time she made her first trip to the United Kingdom, in 1881, Schreiner had already completed her best-known work, The Story of an African Farm. She published it in 1883 under the pseudonym “Ralph Iron.” Set against the African veld, the novel deals with the lives of two orphaned cousins: Em, who is reserved, and Lyndall, who is unconventional. Lyndall’s rejection of marriage and conventional morality makes the novel typical of the “New Woman” fiction of the late 1800’s. While in England, Schreiner met many famous literary and political people. She returned to South Africa in 1889, where she married Samuel Cronwright, a politician, in 1894. Schreiner died on Dec. 11, 1920.
