Athol Fugard Dies Aged 92

Hello Gentle Reader,

Athol Fugard was a giant of South African literature, in the company of equally important and politically conscious and engaged writers such as, Nobel Laureates Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee, Breyten Breytenbach, Andre Brink, and Antjie Krog. Where the others were respected and critically acclaimed novelists, poets, journalists, and essayists, Athol Fugard was a prominently remembered and renowned as a dramatist, whose plays were legendary for their unapologetic political dimensions and critiques of apartheid South Africa. Fugard’s dramatic texts portrayed the oppressive realities of the segregation policies of South Africa’s apartheid system, and their cruel psychological damage the system brought on not only individuals but in intimate relationships. The political cruelty and injustice were a palpable and yet ephemeral source of torment for all citizens of the state, but was designed to exactingly torturous to the black populace. Working as a court clerk in the 1950’s, Athol Fugard witnessed daily, the discriminatory viscousness of the apartheid system, which was facilitated and administered by a venomous and faceless bureaucratic system that was instrumental in not only maintaining apartheid as a system but its continued application. Athol Fugard is often compared to the late Czech playwright turned politician, Václav Havel for his searing portrayal of bureaucratic sponsored authoritarianism under the Soviet Union. Unlike Havel though, Fugard escaped imprisonment due to this own ethnicity and a sociopolitical hierarchy that elevated his stock beyond the majority of the populace; of course, Fugard’s passport was confiscated and his works were subject to book burnings and barred productions of his plays. Further complications of course came from the fact that Athol Fugard incorporated black actors within his work and refused to allow his plays to be staged for segregated audiences. Rehearsals were raided by the police; actors’ names were taken down in writing and many-faced persecution. Posters often listed the players by previous characters they played in attempt to hide their identities. After apartheid ended, as Nadine Gordimer put it, the only subject for “white liberal,” writers had run its course, but Athol Fugard continued to write about the country’s attempt at restorative justice and truth and reconciliation, and later plays were regarded for their philosophical and contemplative approaches. While regarded as a political and agitative writer, the real success of Athol Fugard success came from incorporating political dimensions into otherwise human and ordinary realities. Apartheid may not be named, but its presence oozes through the play, stifling the atmosphere, closing in the walls, to the point its an invisible and asphyxiating presence with an iron chokehold on the characters, depriving them of decency, courtesy, and justice. This is what makes Athol Fugard not just another run of the mill “white liberal,” writing about apartheid in South Africa, but a dramatist who captured the complexities of political oppression in the daily lives of those weighed down by its constant looming presence. Athol Fugard will be remembered as a dramatist who captured horrors of racial segregation in South Africa’s apartheid system and how it infected everyday relationships, homes, and interactions.

Rest in Peace, Athol Fugard.

Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary