Early life and education

A native of the Transkei

Transkei

The Transkei , officially the Republic of Transkei , was a Bantustan—an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity—and nominal parliamentary democracy in the southeastern region of South Africa...

, she grew up in a township

Township (South Africa)

In South Africa, the term township and location usually refers to the urban living areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of Apartheid, were reserved for non-whites . Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities...

 near Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, where she worked as a domestic and completed her secondary education by correspondence. Magona later graduated from the University of South Africa

University of South Africa

The University of South Africa is a distance education university, with headquarters in Pretoria, South Africa. With approximately 300 000 enrolled students, it qualifies as one of the world's mega universities.-History:...

 and earned a graduate degree from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Literary career

She published her autobiography To My Children's Children in 1990. In 1998, she published Mother to Mother, a fictionalized account of the Amy Biehl

Amy Biehl

Amy Elizabeth Biehl was a white American graduate of Stanford University and an Anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa...

 killing, which she adapted to a play. This was performed at the Baxter Theatre complex in late 2009 and the film rights to the novel were acquired by Type A Films

Type A Films

Type A Films is a film production company founded in 2000 by Reese Witherspoon and Debra Siegel. The name of the company comes from an early nickname of Reese's - Little Miss Type A. Reese wanted to start her own company to be able to produce quality films for young women...

. She has also written autobiographies

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 and short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 collections. Her novel Beauty's Gift was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa). She retired from the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 in 2003 and currently lives in South Africa.

In 2009, Please, Take Photographs, her first collection of poems, was published by Modjaji Books.