Wise words from a visionary writer
Aof the King Goodwill Zwelithini biography in isizulu. WARD winning author and poet Fiona Mahomed Khan is a woman spirited about literacy – living by her mantra that an intelligent person rules hearts, but an educated person rules the world.
As an author, Khan has set international trends with her children’s book – tackling taboo topics like HIV/AIDS, child headed homes and sexual harassment of children. Today she is still writing books, but has also gone into the business of life coaching, counselling and literacy programmes.
Born and raised in Isipingo Beach, Khan, 53, said her greatest fascination was the sea and all its treasures. She said she was raised on literature, stories and fairy tales. Khan has always been a high achiever, winning awards since she started attending schooling.
The cold reality hit when she became an orphan at the age of
12 – it was then she said she learnt the meaning of resilience and getting up after being knocked down. Education and achievement was her priority as she tackled innumerable challenges, she said. She has penned over 10 children’s books and novels. “I was the first woman of colour to write children’s books post-apartheid,” said Khan. “It has always been my passion to spread literacy to schools, universities and libraries in KZN and extending the culture of a ‘reading nation is a winning nation’ campaign held by former president Nelson Mandela.”
Khan, a mother of three, who now lives in Morningside, wrote the first HIV/AIDS book in the world for children, Hi I Am HIV Positive, published in 2002. This was followed with a book on child headed households, The Greatest Love and Sticks and Stones, which tackles sexual harassment of children. She said her books were the first to illustrate HIV internationally and to include emotional intelligence, featured at the first EQ Emotional Intelligence Conference and Early Childhood Development Conference held in Durban in 2005. This set a trend for publishers in the education sector in South Africa to follow, she said.
Hi I Am HIV Positive has now been animated for the SABC Children’s Reading Programme on television.