A great South African playwright

Athol Fugard, who has died aged 92, was widely acclaimed as one of South Africa’s greatest playwrights.

The son of an Afrikaner mother, he was best known for his politically charged plays challenging the racist system of apartheid.

Paying tribute to Fugard, South Africa’s Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie hailed him as “a fearless storyteller who laid bare the harsh realities of apartheid through his plays”.

“We were cursed with apartheid, but blessed with great artists who shone a light on its impact and helped to guide us out of it. We owe a huge debt to this late, wonderful man,” McKenzie added.

Fugard wrote more than 30 plays in a career that spanned 70 years, making his mark with The Blood Knot in 1961.

It was the first play in South Africa with a black and white actor – Fugard himself – performing in a front of a multiracial audience, before the apartheid regime introduced laws prohibiting mixed casts and audiences.

The Blood Knot catapulted Fugard onto the international stage – with the play shown in the US, and adapted for British television.

It led to the apartheid regime confiscating his passport, but it strengthened Fugard’s resolve to keep breaking racial barriers and exposing the injustices of apartheid.

He went on to work with the Serpent Players, a group of black actors, and performed in black townships, despite harassment from the apartheid regime’s security forces.

Fugard’s celebrated plays included Boesman and Lena, which looked at the difficult circumstances of a mixed-race couple. Having premiered in 1969, it was made into a film in 2000 starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett.

His novel, Tsotsi, was made into a film, winning the 2006 Oscar for best foreign language movie.

Other well-known plays by him include Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island, which he co-wrote with the actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona.

In a simple tribute on X, Kani posted: “I am deeply saddened by the passing of my dear friend Athol Fugard. May his soul rest in eternal peace. Elder 🌹”

Fugard won several awards for his work, and received a lifetime achievement honour at the prestigious Tony awards in 2011, while Time magazine described him in the 1980s as the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world.

“Apartheid defined me, that is true… But I am proud of the work that came out of it, that carries my name,” Fugard told the AFP news agency in 1995.

Fugard feared that the end of apartheid in 1994 could leave him with little to do, but he still found enough material to write.

In a BBC interview in 2010, he said that he shared the view of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu that “we have lost our way” as a nation.

“I think the present society in South Africa needs the vigilance of writers, every bit as much as the old one did.

“It is a responsibility that young writers, playwrights, must really wake up to and understand that responsibility is theirs, just as it was mine and a host of other writers in the earlier years.”

Additional reporting by the BBC’s Elettra Neysmith.