Dream Life and Real Life

Dream Life and Real Life is an 1893 collection of three short pieces by Olive Schreiner (1855-1920), the South African novelist and social thinker. The title story, a small Karoo tragedy in which the farm child Jannita dreams of kindness while the real world deals her betrayal and death, distils the contrast that gives the volume its name. The accompanying pieces, The Woman’s Rose and The Policy in Favour of Protection, work Schreiner’s lifelong subjects: the bonds and rivalries of women and the cost of love withheld or transferred. Schreiner wrote short allegories and dreams throughout her career as companions to her novels and her feminist treatise Woman and Labour. The little book shows her parable art in concentrated form. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.