Honours and celebrates

SINDIWE MAGONA marking her 80^th Year

This Saturday Artscape will celebrate the 80^th birthday of Dr Sindiwe Magona, internationally acclaimed author, poet, playwright, essayist, storyteller, actor, and inspirational speaker from Gugulethu, as the third and final icon of the Artscape Women’s Humanity Festival. Woman Zone will launch her two books in Magona’s honour at the Artscape Innovation Lounge as part of her 80^th birthday celebrations: I Write The Yawning Void and Sindiwe’s Gift. 

Magona’s life journey is nothing but inspirational, from working as a domestic, to completing her matric and BA degree by correspondence, a Master’s of Science degree from Columbia University, an Honarary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Hartwick College in New York and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of the Western Cape which she obtained last year!

Magona writes about her impoverished life growing up, her political struggles as a black woman in South Africa, GBV, human rights, racism, the struggles of women and youth, and reconciliation, among many other themes, in both English and isiXhosa. She also translates for various media, including film, as well as voicing books for the audio market. She is widely published in the New York Times, The International Tribune, the Cape Times, the Cape Argus, the Sunday Times, and the Herald as well as in magazines in South Africa. Several of her short stories, essays, and poems have been anthologized.

Retired from the United Nations at Head Quarters, New York after serving more than two decades, Magona is back in South Africa inspiring young and old.  Apart from the many books she has authored, this founder of the Gugulethu Writers’ Group, which she runs on a voluntary basis, encourages especially women to write their own stories. Dr Magona is currently a Senior Researcher at the University of the Western Cape.

 A presentation by I see U young women’s mentoring programme will form part of Magona’s 80^th birthday celebrations at Artscape on Saturday 26 August starting at 10h30. All is welcome.