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Olive Emilie
Albertina Schreiner (1855 - 1920) was born the ninth
of 12 children to Gottlob and Rebecca Schreiner. Her
German father and English mother, both missionaries
in South Africa, provided a household grounded in a
strict Calvinist tradition.
 After studying at the Christian Brother's school
for three years in
Cradock (Eastern Cape), Schreiner
began working as a governess, an occupation she
pursued for eleven years, followed by a teaching job
at the
Kimberley New School (Northern
Cape).
During these early years she studied the
works of a wide array of prominent Victorian
intellectuals, wrote a considerable number of her
own short stories, and began to develop her own
social ideas - ideas that would eventually brand her
as a Victorian revolutionary. She also began work on
her own novel about her experiences in South Africa,
"The Story of an African Farm".
 When she had saved enough money she travelled to
Britain in 1881 with the objective of training to
becoming a doctor. While working at the Edinburgh
Royal Infirmary Schreiner heard about the Women's
Medical School that had been established by
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake. She
moved to London where she began attending lectures
at the Medical School, although she subsequently
abandoned her initial aspirations of becoming a
medical doctor because of her own poor health.
For the second time Schreiner sought publication
of her book, The Story of an African Farm. Chapman
and Hall's acceptance of the novel in 1883 marked a
landmark in her career as a novelist and social
activist. It was published under the pseudonym,
Ralph Irons, because of a contemporary prejudice
against women authors.
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The novel's immediate success, which persisted
throughout her lifetime, provided her acceptance
among a group of revolutionary thinkers. She began
to associate with a distinguished group of
intellectuals, including
Edward Carpenter and
Eleanor Marx (youngest daughter of Karl Marx).
Schreiner's next novel, "Trooper Peter
Halket of Mashonaland" (1897), was a strong
attack on Cecil Rhodes and the imperialism
and racism that he epitomised in South
Africa.
Schreiner returned to South Africa in
1889 and met her husband, Samuel Cronwright,
three years later. Before the outbreak of
the Anglo-Boer War in 1899, Schreiner
suffered the loss of her first child (a
tragedy that emerges prominently in her
later fiction).
 Schreiner's intellectual role escalated
to that of an outspoken, oftentimes
revolutionary political leader. Her
political and literary work included tracts
opposing Cecil Rhodes' colonialist
activities in Africa as well as Britain's
involvement in the Anglo-Boer War.
Between 1908 and 1913 Olive and her
husband lived in
De Aar
in the
Northern Cape. Their house, a national
monument, is now a restaurant.
"Women and Labour" was published in
1911. Although Schreiner was disappointed
with the book, it was immediately acclaimed
as an important statement on feminism and
had a major influence on a large number of
young women. A strong supporter of universal
suffrage, Schreiner argued that the vote was
"a weapon, by which the weak may be able to
defend themselves against the strong, the
poor against the weak".
On the outbreak of the First World War
Schreiner moved back to England. Over the
next four years she was active in the peace
movement and worked closely with
organizations such as the Union of
Democratic Control and the Non-Conscription
Fellowship.
In August 1920 Schreiner 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
outside
Cradock in the
Eastern Cape, overlooking the Karoo.
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