[5][6] Matlwa was nine or ten years old in 1994 when Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, and she told NPR that she remembers it as an "exciting time".

[2] Matlwa has been cited as the emerging voice of a new generation of South African writers, dealing with issues such as race, poverty and gender.

Ona-Mtoto-Wako,[10] an initiative to bring antenatal health care to pregnant women living in remote and rural parts of the developing world that she co-founded with her friend Chrystelle Wedi, won the 2015 Aspen Idea Award.

[11] Matlwa is the executive director of Grow Great, a campaign aimed at mobilizing South Africa towards achieving a stunting-free generation by 2030.

Stunting is a medical condition where a child has impaired growth and development as a result of "poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation.

[14] It delves into the complex society that was supposed to be free but "as new freedoms are born with difficulty, [they] often reveal fresh problems or create them.

Both of these protagonists struggle with finding their identity in the new multiracial society; they experience the divide between various African ideals and global Western values of whiteness.