I Write the Yawning Void
Selected Essays of Sindiwe Magona
Published on 1. July 2023
Book
Hardback
328 pages
978-1-77614-819-6 (ISBN)
Description
Sindiwe Magona is a celebrated South African writer, storyteller and motivational speaker known mainly for her autobiographies, biographies, novels, short stories, poetry and children's books. I Write the Yawning Void is a collection of essays that highlight her engagement with writing that span the transition from apartheid to the post-apartheid period and addresses themes such as HIV/Aids, language and culture, home and belonging.
Magona worked as a teacher, domestic worker and spent two decades working for the United Nations in the United States of America. She has received many awards for her fierce and fearless writing 'truth to power'. Her written work is often informed by her lived experience of being a black woman resisting subjugation and poverty.
These essays bring to life many facets of Magona's personal history as well as her deepest convictions, her love for her country and despair at the problems that continue to plague it, and her belief in her ability to activate change. They demonstrate Magona's engaging storytelling and mastery of the essay form which serve as meaningful supplements to her fictional works, while simultaneously offering direct and insightful responses to the conditions that inspired them.
Through her essays Magona offers a reimagining of a broken society and the role literature can play in casting new light on old wounds.
Magona worked as a teacher, domestic worker and spent two decades working for the United Nations in the United States of America. She has received many awards for her fierce and fearless writing 'truth to power'. Her written work is often informed by her lived experience of being a black woman resisting subjugation and poverty.
These essays bring to life many facets of Magona's personal history as well as her deepest convictions, her love for her country and despair at the problems that continue to plague it, and her belief in her ability to activate change. They demonstrate Magona's engaging storytelling and mastery of the essay form which serve as meaningful supplements to her fictional works, while simultaneously offering direct and insightful responses to the conditions that inspired them.
Through her essays Magona offers a reimagining of a broken society and the role literature can play in casting new light on old wounds.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Johannesburg
South Africa
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
490 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-77614-819-6 (9781776148196)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Sindiwe Magona is an internationally renowned South African writer who has received many awards and widespread recognition for her writing, her activism and humanitarian work. She has written novels, children's books, short stories, poetry, biographies, autobiographies, essays, radio plays, and a screenplay. Magona was awarded the Order of iKhamanga by the President of the Republic of South Africa in 2011. She is Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
Renee Schatteman is Associate Professor at Georgia State University (USA) specialising in postcolonial literature. Among other books she is the co-author of Voices from the Continent, a three-volume curriculum guide to African literature and co-editor of Five Points: Special Issue on the Writing and Art of South Africa.
Renee Schatteman is Associate Professor at Georgia State University (USA) specialising in postcolonial literature. Among other books she is the co-author of Voices from the Continent, a three-volume curriculum guide to African literature and co-editor of Five Points: Special Issue on the Writing and Art of South Africa.