What is the main conflict in A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings by Bessie Head?

A Woman Alone is a series of autobiographical writings by Bessie Amelia Head (1937-1986), who is widely considered to be the finest Botswanan writer of the twentieth century. Born the child of a wealthy South African white woman and a black servant who tended to the woman's family's race horses, Head's birth is apparently considered a scandal. In 1937 in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa, deep racism is a fact of life and so Head's existence has to be hidden. Head knows little about her family save that she is told as a little girl that her mother is mentally ill and has had a mental break down and that her mother shares her name.