I Write the Yawning Void

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 her writing that spans the transition from apartheid to the post-apartheid period, and that addresses themes such as HIV/Aids, language and culture, home and belonging. Magona worked as a teacher and domestic worker, and spent two decades working for the United Nations in the United States of America. She has received many awards for her 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 mastery of the essay form and serve as meaningful supplements to her fictional works, offering insightful responses to the conditions that inspired them.

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. Renée 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.