‘Sizwe Banzi Is Dead’ – No, I mean, Athol Fugard. So long! By Omoniyi Ibietan

Professor Fugard, anti-Apartheid activist and consequential dissident, possibly the most impacting playwright and novelist from South Africa, who opposed Apartheid with his strength and fervour, published at least 30 plays, some of them politically penetrating and denouncing racism, has passed away in Stellenbosch at 92.

He decried Apartheid with passion and suffered irredeemably, including occasional burning of his books, despite often publishing outside South Africa to prevent banning and state attacks. To instantiate, Fugard’s play, THE ISLAND (1972) set on Robben Island where Mandela spent 27 years, has a gripping characterisation of Madiba. SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD is one other popular play Fugard co-authored with two other South Africans. He used his plays to capture the injustices of Apartheid and as a drama director and producer, the South African police repeatedly scrutinised his scripts, rehearsals and actors.

Originally paternally Irish by ancestry and maternally Dutch, his mother, Marrie’s family having moved to SA among early Afrikaans, Athol was iconoclastic and radical through and through. He had served as an “adjunct professor of playwriting, acting and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego”, United States. He won several awards for his works and he was considered one of the best writers in the English language. May his soul rest in peace.