Novel: A Question of Power

Plot overview
A Question of Power follows Elizabeth, a woman who has fled South Africa and is living as a refugee in Botswana. The novel tracks a descent into and emergence from episodes of severe psychological disturbance as Elizabeth confronts a succession of inner voices and visions that fracture her sense of self. Real-life pressures, alienation, poverty, and the daily humiliations of exile, interweave with a series of hallucinatory encounters that force Elizabeth to negotiate what is real, what is remembered, and what is imagined.
The narrative moves between lucid, often tender recollections of childhood and the present-day chaos of psychosis. Moments of external action, hospital visits, strained social interactions, and attempts to make a life in a small community, are counterpointed with long interior sequences in which Elizabeth debates, pleads, and bargains with the commanding voices inside her. Recovery is not linear; the novel charts ruptures and recoveries, showing how spiritual searching, human connection, and inner work are braided together in the effort to reclaim agency.

Elizabeth's inner struggle
Elizabeth's battle with mental illness is the emotional core of the novel. Her symptoms are portrayed with a raw intimacy that refuses simple diagnostic labels, emphasizing instead the lived experience of fear, shame, and intermittent clarity. Voices in her head assume roles that mirror social and historical forces, accusatory, seductive, authoritative, and Elizabeth responds to them as one would to external oppressors, negotiating survival strategies that are as psychological as they are moral.
Rather than presenting madness as merely pathology, the book frames Elizabeth's crisis as a site of revelation and resistance. Her inner dialogues expose internalized racism, gendered expectations, and the trauma of displacement. The work interrogates how external structures, colonial rule, patriarchal norms, and economic marginalization, become internalized and manifest as tormenting inner speech, making the personal breakdown a commentary on social breakdown.

Setting and social context
The Botswana setting is both backdrop and active presence, offering a landscape of stark beauty and social complexity. Village life, Christian missionary influence, and the status of refugees populate the social world Elizabeth inhabits, highlighting tensions between tradition and modernity, inclusion and exclusion. The novel situates personal suffering within a broader political geography, reminding readers that exile carries not only material deprivation but also moral and spiritual dislocation.
The historical shadow of apartheid-era South Africa hangs over the characters' lives, shaping interactions and opportunities. As Elizabeth encounters both compassion and cruelty, the narrative reveals how community ties can be sustaining yet fragile, and how societal prejudice compounds the difficulty of seeking care and understanding for mental distress.

Narrative style and structure
A Question of Power employs an intense first-person narrative that moves fluidly between lyrical description and jagged, hallucinatory passages. The prose can be spare and crystalline when describing landscape or memory, then erupt into feverish, non-linear sequences during episodes of psychosis. This stylistic volatility draws readers into Elizabeth's consciousness, making the experience of dissociation and recovery viscerally accessible.
Fragments of myth, religious symbolism, and psychological interrogation are woven into the fabric of the text. The structure resists neat resolution; instead, it allows contradictions to coexist, reflecting the complexity of healing. The language's emotional force and moral seriousness give the novel a poetic quality even as it remains grounded in social realism.

Themes and significance
Central themes include identity, exile, mental illness, and the struggle for spiritual and emotional autonomy. The novel interrogates how systemic injustices become internalized, and it insists that madness be understood as both a personal crisis and a social symptom. Gendered vulnerability is also foregrounded: Elizabeth's status as a woman refugee complicates her access to safety and care, highlighting intersections of oppression.
A Question of Power is widely regarded as a landmark in African literature for its candid treatment of psychological suffering and its fusion of political insight with intimate portrayal. Its compassionate, unsparing depiction of one woman's fight to reclaim herself continues to resonate, offering a powerful meditation on resilience, the limits of language, and the possibility of rebirth after fragmentation.