Thinking of and with Another: Caring for Schreiner in the Time of COVID

Olive Schreiner’s elusive, unfinished novel From Man to Man is a timely text as it engages with questions pertaining to survival and healing. In today’s pandemic world, care and community – specifically, how much we need both, and what is lost when either is missing, or fails – have proven essential. This article presents a close reading of a ‘specially loved’ novel, an Anglo-South African’s challenging examination of gender, race, and class inequities. Schreiner’s imaginative effort toward justice, toward the goal of collective flourishing, guides this reparative reading to vaster insight pertaining to interpretive practice, academic community, kinship, and social change.