Survival of the Dispossessed

With Wole Soyinka as his only possible rival, Athol Fugard is the best known African playwright. However, where the Nigerian is actively involved in politics - he has in the past been imprisoned as a result of this involvement, and as recently as June 2005 a rally was held in Ibadan, backed by Soyinka, to promote a conference to end ethnic and political violence in Nigeria - Fugard''s politics are to be found in his texts rather than his actions. Fugard, who was born on a farm near the South African Karoo village of Middleburg, has had a most distinguished career as playwright, director and actor, and at the age of seventy eight, he is still writing. For the general public he is more likely to be remembered for his role as General Smuts in the Richard Attenborough film, Gandhi, but his most substantial acting performances came when he starred in some of his earliest plays, notably Blood Knot and Boesman and Lena. This book does not concern itself with his career as an actor or a director or even with Fugard as playwright per se, but rather with a set of texts and the South African politics within them.