Athol Fugard, who died at the age of 92, was widely recognized as one of the greatest playwrights in South Africa.
The son of the African mother, he was best known for his politically charged games that cause the racist system of Apartheid.
Paying to pay tribute to Fugard, the Minister of Arts and Culture in South Africa Gayton McKenzie greeted him as a “fearless narrator who broke through the sharp reality of Apartheid through his performances.”
“Damn us Aparthey, but blessed with great artists who illuminated their influence and helped to guide us from it. We owe a huge debt to this late, wonderful man,” McKenzie added.
Fugard has written more than 30 career performances, which lasted 70 years, which is its mark with a blood node in 1961.
It was the first game in southern Africa with a black -white actor – Fugard – who performed on the front of the multitude audience, before the Apartheid regime introduced laws forbidding mixed acting and audiences.
Blood catapulted a fugard on the international stage – with a play shown in the USA -UI adapted to British television.
The Apartheid regime later seized his passport, but strengthened Fugard’s determination to continue to break the racial barriers and expose the injustice of Apartheid.
He continued to work with the players of snakes, a group of black actors, and performed in black cities, despite the harassment of Apartheid’s security forces.
Fugard’s celebrated show included Boesman and Lena, who watched the heavy circumstances of the mixed race. After premiered in 1969, it was made in a movie 2000, starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett.
His novel Tsotsi was made in the movie, winning Oscar from 2006 for Best Foreign Language Film.
The Prime Minister of the Southern African Province of Western Cape, Alan Winda, said that Fugard had a “penetrating, sharp wit”, and his “acute understanding of the political and cultural composition of our country was not overlap.”
“He’ll miss him a lot,” Winda added.
Other well -known performances include Sizwe Banzi is dead, and the island, who, along with actors John Kani and Winston Ntschon, is in a strong condemnation of life on Robben Island, where the icon against Apartheid Nelson Mandela was closed.
In a simple tribute to X, she announced: “I am deeply sad about the passing of my dear friend Ales Fugard. May his soul rest in eternal peace. Older 🌹”
Fugard won several awards for his work and received the honor of lifelong achievement on the prestigious Tony Awards 2011, while the magazine described him in 1985 as the greatest active playwright in the English speaking world.
“Apartheid defined me, that’s true … But I’m proud of the job that came out of it, which bears my name,” Fugard told the AFP news agency in 1995.
Fugard was afraid that the end of Apartheid in 1994 could leave little of it, but still found enough writing material.
In the 2010 BBC interview, he said that he had shared his view of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu that we “lost the way” as a nation.
“I think the current society in South Africa needs the alertness of writers, and every now and then it did old.
“The responsibility is that young writers, playwrights, really have to wake up and understand that their responsibility is, just as it was mine and many other writers in earlier years.”
Additional BBC reporting Elettra Neysmith.
