Olive Schreiner In/Beyond the Museum

Located in the small country town of Cradock, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, the Schreiner House Museum serves as the epicentre of what might be called ‘Schreiner Country’ and as the ideal site for the interpretation of that uniquely significant terrain in Schreiner’s life and works. The acquisition of the much altered and virtually derelict Schreiner cottage in 1983 provided the fledgling National Literary Museum (later NELM, now AMAZWI) with an unprecedented occasion for a literary museum to commemorate, in a highly author-specific way, the first internationally recognised South African writer in English. The restored and amplified Schreiner House offers opportunities for education, outreach, and the exercise of the historical imagination. This chapter briefly situates the Schreiner House within the history of the development of the parent museum. It elaborates on the educational and outreach programmes to which the existence of the House has given rise. The authors draw on both published material and first-hand experience: Fogg was Deputy Director of NELM from 1991-2013, and Walters served on the NELM Council and its sub-committees for over a decade and participated in some of the outreach programmes.