Fugard, Athol, << FOO gahrd, ATH uhl >> (1932-…), is a South African playwright. Many of his plays explore the destructive effects of apartheid, the policy of racial segregation enforced in South Africa until 1991. Fugard has directed and acted in many of his own plays.
His first play to gain recognition was The Blood Knot (1961). The drama tells the story of two half brothers, one with light skin and the other with dark skin. Boesman and Lena (1969) concerns two impoverished people of mixed race and their struggle for survival. Fugard joined black South African actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona in writing the comedy Sizwe Banzi Is Dead (1972), in which a black man trades identity papers with a corpse. “Master Harold” … and the Boys (1982) deals with the relationship between a white boy and a black waiter, showing how racism disrupts their friendship. In The Road to Mecca (1985), Fugard examines the role of the artist in the modern world. His other dramas include Hello and Goodbye (1965), A Lesson from Aloes (1978), My Children! My Africa! (1988), Playland (1992), Valley Song (1995), Exits and Entrances (2004), The Train Driver (2010), and The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek (2015).
Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard, who is white, was born on June 11, 1932, in Middelburg, in what is now Eastern Cape province.
