South Africa: President Cyril Ramaphosa pays tribute to Athol Fugard
President Cyril Ramaphosa praised the late dramatist, novelist and actor Athol Fugard for “a remarkable storyteller, and the moral conscience of a generation during the extraordinary times.”
Fugard died on Sunday, March 9, 2025 at the age of 93.
President Ramaphosa said: “In addition to the impressive work he left behind, Athol Fugard will be remembered in the outliers of millions of South Africans who turn a blind eye to injustice in their name.”
In the late 1950s, Fugard served as a clerk in the local commissioner court in Johannesburg, which would greatly influence his worldview and shape his political consciousness.
He was known for working in the racial divide when he forbidden racial mixing and set up several drama companies with black actors.
Fugard’s works include the absence of Good Friday, Blood Knot, Master Harold and the Boy, and Sizwe Bansi’s Death.
His 1980 novel Tsotsi was adapted into a film by director Gavin Hood and won an Academy Award in 2005.
In his play, the island co-written with theater legends Winston Ntshona and John Kani, the cruelty and dehumanization of apartheid replicates a bare floor on the bare ground of Robben Island, exposed in the most obvious way.
In 1985, Time magazine celebrated Athol Fugard as the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world. He used this influential voice to evoke the conscience of international audiences in support of the anti-apartheid struggle: “As a country, we are grateful that we were able to honor his legendary Athol Fugard with a silver medal national order throughout his life,” President Ramaphosa said.
The president added: “The Fugard Theatre in Cape Town’s Sixth District has expressed its respect for the indelible footprint of a person’s life and work that will continue to inspire future time for generations of creative professionals.”
Issued by Apo Group on behalf of the President of the Republic of South Africa.
