Sindiwe Magona: An Interview for ALT

Summary

Ernest Emenyonu: With us here is Sindiwe Magona, an illustrious and versatile South African writer. Best described as novelist, activist, social worker, visionary, and so on and so forth. Two days ago I found out to my pleasant surprise that you’ve recently published about 130 children's books and still writing. But not much is talked about this as part of your creativity, so I’ll start with that. Why is there this omission? Is it accidental or is it deliberate? Or do people just feel that books for children are not all that important?

Sindiwe Magona: No I think it's accidental, but it's also a reflection of how much attention we put on children's writing and children's books, and that's why children's books are seldom reviewed, especially those written in African indigenous languages – those are never reviewed – period! In South Africa you might get an odd review of a book written in English or even in Afrikaans, but never a book written in African languages; there are no reviews of these books and so critics who may want to include them in what they put on the internet have nothing to go by. And the publishers themselves who publish children's books in African indigenous languages, are themselves, I think neglectful, because they will not publish such books unless they are used in schools, otherwise they amount to nothing really much. There is no great push for children's books unless driven by commercial motives.

Ernest Emenyonu: Now that you’ve answered that, let's go to the journal, African Literature Today. The issue (ALT 33) that's just about to go to print is on children's literature and story-telling in Africa. And incidentally, the response to, the call for papers, for it, has been abysmally poor, to put it mildly. So what do you think accounts for this general neglect or disregard of children's literature, when Africans are traditionally a story-telling people and story-telling begins with children?

Sindiwe Magona: Well, speaking from a personal perspective when I hear or see ‘Call for Papers’, I say, ‘that's academic’ and so that excludes me, a writer. I don't regard myself as an academic, I’m just a writer. And I think unless people in academia, offer courses in children's literature, and critics and teachers at that level take up the writing of papers on the genre, it's not going to come from storytellers.