Cape Town - Revered, long-standing author and national treasure Dr Sindiwe Magona is receiving her flowers while still alive and “doing the work”, and at the age of 80 vowed to continue writing until she “can no more”.
On Saturday, the Innovation Lounge at the Artscape Theatre was filled with writers, avid readers, artists, activists, family and friends as they gathered to celebrate Magona’s 80th birthday.
The birthday celebrations were coupled by the launch of two books, one authored by Magona titled ‘I Write the Yawning Void’ and another written by several individuals who had been impacted by her presence and works over many years, written to honor her, titled ‘Sindiwe’s Gift’.
The Woman Zone event was part of Artscape Women’s Humanity Festival, taking place this National Women’s Month under the theme ‘MILESTONES: Celebrating, Supporting and Empowering Women of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.’
“I feel great. I’m just a little sorry I haven’t done more. If the little I have done, I get such a response it just makes me wonder what I might have achieved, had I done more,” she said.
Magona has written more than 150 children’s books, novels, autobiographical works, short stories, essay books and poetry.
Of her latest work, she said: “It’s about the stuff my people, my nation in South Africa, are not talking about. There are hard issues we need to face and try to work towards a resolution.
It’s not enough to be angry, it’s not enough to be sad. We have to deal with the stuff that’s stabbing us in the eye. We need to kill poverty, violence, the stupid education that is happening that everybody knows, especially for the black child, that it’s worse than Bantu education. We know this, what are we doing about it?”
Born in the village of Gungulu in the rural former Transkei, she would later go on to study for her Master’s Degree in Social Work at Columbia University in the US and until her retirement in 2003, she served the UN for 20 years.
The former primary school teacher and civil servant was awarded the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze for her “outstanding achievements in literature and playwriting and for using her pen as a weapon in the struggle for peace, social change and freedom” in 2011.