Have you by any chance watched the South African movie “Tsotsi”? In 2006, it was the first South African film and first African film not made in French to win an Oscar for foreign language film and numerous international awards. It tells the story of a ruthless gang leader who steals a car, only to find a baby in the back seat. The movie is based off the novel by the same name “Tsotsi” by South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director widely regarded as South Africa’s greatest playwright Athol Fugard.
This past Saturday, Athol Fugard, who in 1985 was acclaimed as “the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world” by Time, passed away at the age of 92. His work confronted apartheid and spanned over 7 decades with over 30 playwrights. He was a critic of apartheid and very early broke the rules and included all as in his 1961 breakthrough play, Blood Knot, which featured for the first time in South African history a black and white actor played by Fugard himself, and was played in front of a multiracial audience.
Excerpts below are from the BBC. Enjoy!
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Athol Fugard, who has died aged 92, was widely acclaimed as one of South Africa’s greatest playwrights.
The son of an Afrikaner mother, he was best known for his politically charged plays challenging the racist system of apartheid.
… Fugard wrote more than 30 plays in a career that spanned 70 years, making his mark with The Blood Knot in 1961. It was the first play in South Africa with a black and white actor – Fugard himself – performing in a front of a multiracial audience, before the apartheid regime introduced laws prohibiting mixed casts and audiences. The Blood Knot catapulted Fugard onto the international stage – with the play shown in the US, and adapted for British television. The apartheid regime later confiscated his passport, but it strengthened Fugard’s resolve to keep breaking racial barriers and exposing the injustices of apartheid. He went on to work with the Serpent Players, a group of black actors, and performed in black townships, despite harassment from the apartheid regime’s security forces.
Fugard’s celebrated plays included Boesman and Lena, which looked at the difficult circumstances of a mixed-race couple. Having premiered in 1969, it was made into a film in 2000 starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett.
His novel, Tsotsi, was also made into a film, winning the 2006 Oscar for best foreign language movie.
… Other well-known plays by Fugard include Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island, which he co-wrote with the actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona, in a powerful condemnation of life on Robben Island, where anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.
… Fugard won several awards for his work, and received a lifetime achievement honour at the prestigious Tony awards in 2011, while Time magazine described him in 1985 as the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world.
“Apartheid defined me, that is true… But I am proud of the work that came out of it, that carries my name,” Fugard told the AFP news agency in 1995.
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African Heritage 
Athol Fugard presented to white audiences in South Africa and abroad a view of Sputh African blacks that went beyond the polarised images of the media Blacks wanted to know if whites really saw their suffering while we’re shocked into seeing that there was knowledge of blacks that went beyond the apartheid category “Bantu” For most Africans the most powerful of his plays is Sizwe Bansi is Dead in which Fugard seeks to make white people to understand that for black people to live under apartheid was to die and live as an avatar of the whiteman’s creation.
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Thank you for your comment. Athol Fugard indeed exposed the white South-African audiences to the life and suffering of the Black man under apartheid
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