Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift: Sexual Security in the Era of HIV/AIDS

Abstract

This article examines Sindiwe Magona’s 2008 novel, Beauty’s Gift (Cape Town: Kwela), noting its significance as the first full-length work by a South African woman on the topic of HIV/AIDS. The article contends that the novel borrows elements from popular modes of African fiction, primarily through its valorisation of female friendship, to speak to the urgency of the country’s health crisis and to question how love and marriage can be negotiated when women have become vulnerable to disease and death because of their unfaithful husbands. Charting the trajectory of the novel, this analysis recounts how one woman’s illness and death inspire her friends to challenge both the cultural endorsement of a masculinity that rejects any expectations of fidelity and the stigma which encourages South Africans to remain stuck in a quagmire of denial and indifference. While Magona envisions a transformation from passivity to determined action, she also nuances her indictment of men by noting the destabilisation of the African family caused by the exploitation of the black male body under apartheid. In addition, she suggests the role that certain traditional practices can play in offering examples of the type of community cohesion that is needed to stem the tide of HIV infections. The article concludes by acknowledging Magona’s willingness to adapt her aesthetics in this work to become an advocate for critically needed change as well as a spokesperson for uncomfortable truths related to the misdirection and inadequacy of the governmental response to the HIV/AIDS crisis.