Biography Of Athol Fugard

Athol Fugard

Athol Fugard was born on the 11th of June 1932 in Cape Town, to a below average income household. His mother, Elizabeth Magdalena an Afrikaner, operated first a general store and then a boarding house; his father, Harold, was a disabled former jazz pianist of Irish, English and French Huguenot blood. In 1935, his family moved to Port Elizabeth. He attended Marist Brothers College in 1938, thereafter going to university of Cape Town to study philosophy. After his second year at the University of Cape Town he, with his mother’s consent dropped out to go and tour the world, he toured around Africa while working on a merchant ship where he began writhing. In 1956 Fugard married Sheila Meiring, a South African actress and writer. He wrote his first play klaas and the devil.(1956) He there after wrote No-Good Friday (1958) ,the cell (1957) and nongogo (1959) which was his first ever play to be produced abroad in Sheffield, England and in New York, USA. In the years 1958-1961 Fugard worked with the Union Artists in Johannesburg. (The Union of South African Artists, known as Union Artists, was formed in the 1950s to protect black artists from being discriminated against). Around about 1959 Fugard moves to London to avoid conflict with the national government as his plays were going against the regime of the time where he writes the blood knot in 1960. This play was performed once in Johannesburg in 1961 before being banned by the government. In 1961 Fugards daughter Lisa Fugard is born, but unfortunately his father dies later that year, that same year Fugard joins the fight against apartheid and writes a play called the coat (1966) which is produced that in 1966 in South Africa. In 1967 Fugard returned to South Africa. Wh...

... middle of paper ...

...frica went through during apartheid. Athol Fugard lives in California part of the year, teaching playwriting at the University of California, but claims South Africa to be his real home.

Historical social and political conditions

Athol Fugard was born in South Africa during the apartheid era and lived through South Africa becoming a democratic country.

Segregation of the whites and non-whites in South Africa was referred to as apartheid, during this time of apartheid non-whites where treated as lower level humans. Athol Fugard was against apartheid and that’s why most of his plays where a form of protest plays against the apartheid regime, Athol worked with black people in his plays for this Athol Fugard had his passport taken away multiple times. Apartheid sparked significant internal resistance and violence, and a long arms and trade embargo against South Africa.