Magajna was born on the Karst Plateau in what is now southwestern Slovenia in 1904. It was a time of great economic hardship, and two of his siblings emigrated to the United States. Magajna chose to remain in Europe, however, and after completing medical school, he worked as an army doctor in several cities, including Sarajevo, where he began to work on his first book. In 1935, he became a full-time doctor at Ljubljana’s Psychiatric Clinic, but continued to write in his spare time.

Some of Magajna’s books were based on his experiences as a doctor. Others described the struggle of his native village under Italian occupation. But they were all characterized by a profound humanism and a thorough understanding of the human psyche.

At the start of World War II, Magajna was drafted into the Italian army. He escaped, was captured, and spent several months in a concentration camp. He ultimately joined the Partisan resistance and helped to set up a field hospital near Snežnik in southern Slovenia. He even published a wartime medical journal – a rarity on a global scale.

After the war, Magajna returned to Ljubljana and became recognized as one of the leading figures in Slovenian psychiatry. In addition to writing for medical publications, he remained committed to writing books for adults and children.

Some of his work for children was based on old folk tales from various parts of Slovenia, while much of it was utterly original. Brkonja Čeljustnik tells the story of a friendly giant who is tremendously proud of his moustache, but is ultimately betrayed by people, who end up cutting it off. Unlike many children’s stories, the book features characters that are neither all-good nor all-evil, but morally complex and always changing. Magajna used his experience as a psychiatrist to make his works psychologically intriguing, and his works of adult fiction often dealt with illness.

Magajna was also determined to bring medicine, including psychiatry, closer to ordinary people. He wrote a regular column for Kmečki Glas newspaper and was one of the first doctors to give out medical advice on the radio.

As he got older, Magajna frequently told his stories to groups of children and was beloved by his young audiences. He died in 1963 from complications of diabetes, but left behind a legacy in both his chosen profession and in literature.