Athol Fugard (1932 - ...) is a playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, actor and teacher. He was born in the town of Middelburg, in the Karoo desert region of South Africa, and a few years later his family moved to Port Elizabeth. His mother was an Afrikaner, a member of the dominant economic, political, cultural and religious class, descended from Dutch settlers, while his father was Irish. He began studying philosophy and social anthropology at university in Cape Town but dropped out in order to travel. Returning in 1954, Fugard began working as a journalist, but soon devoted his energies to writing plays. In 1958, he and his first wife, the actress Sheila Meiring, moved to Johannesburg. There, they formed their first theatre company, the Serpent Players, with Black amateur actors. it was in Johannesburg that he first realised the injustice of apartheid and worked to give a voice to the dispossessed.

In the 1970s and 80s, Fugard travelled to Europe and America, bringing his works to some of the world’s major theatres. By the mid-80s, he was being acclaimed as the most important living English-language dramatist, while in the ensuing decades he received numerous honours and awards.

Fugard’s plays fall into two periods: during the first, he wrote in collaboration with actors and other associates, and in the second, on his own. The former works chiefly record the effect of apartheid and denounce the daily brutality of the white ruling class, while the latter are more autobiographical. For Fugard, art can play an educational role, and this is what he has always aspired to throughout his career. In 2010, the Fugard Theatre opened in what had been an all-Black neighbourhood of Cape Town during apartheid.

 

A short list of his plays:
No-good Friday, Nongogo, The blood knot, Sizwe Bangi is dead, The island, The road to Mecca.

 

I was speaking about simple gratitude, Miss Barlow. Wouldn’t you say contentment is a more complicated state of mind? One that can very easily be disturbed. But grateful? Yes! Our Coloured folk also have every reason to be. Ask them. (The road to Mecca)