ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Magona’s recent writings and suggests that they demonstrate the paradox of the contemporary moment, whereby South Africans face material circumstances largely unchanged even though they no longer face repressive legislation. To address this, she explores the state of children, leadership, and the national psyche and tries her hand at three new forms—children’s books, biographies, and the “rural novel.” This chapter studies how she employs a paradox related to each of these genres that speaks back to the larger paradox of disillusionment: in her children’s books, where she delights in the joys of childhood while also speaking for the adult within that child who needs to be properly nurtured to reach his/her full potential; in her biographies (of Elinor Sisulu, Archbishop Ndungane, and Thembi Mtshali-Jones), where she presents her subjects as ordinary people who have made extraordinary accomplishments (thereby serving as role models for others to follow); and in her rural novels (Chasing the Tails of My Father’s Cattle and When the Village Sleeps), where she suggests that the values found in rural South Africa can serve as an exemplar or corrective for contemporary ills, even as she acknowledges the limitations and the perversions of some of these values.
