By surname

Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner (1855–1920) was the ninth of twelve children born to a missionary couple, at the Wesleyan Missionary Society station at Wittebergen in the Eastern Cape, near Herschelin South Africa. She was a woman of vision and an author of skill with a passion to heal society’s ills.

Schreiner’s Story of an African Farm was acclaimed for the manner it tackled the issues of its day, ranging from agnosticism to the treatment of women and her radical views on marriage, class distinction and religion remain relevant to this day, giving the book an important place in South African literature.

In 1920, Schreiner died in her sleep in a boarding house. She was buried later in Kimberley. After the death of her husband, Samuel Cronwright, her body was exhumed. Olive Schreiner, along with her baby, dog and husband were buried atop Buffelskop mountain, on the farm known as Buffelshoek, near Cradock, in the Eastern Cape.