In 1993 he was awarded an honorary DOCTOR OF LITERATURE (HONORIS CAUSA) by the then University of Port Elizabeth, one of the predecessor institutions of Nelson Mandela University, for his outstanding contribution to the arts in South Africa.
Fugard passionately believed that the spark of creativity is in every human soul. “It is another small miracle that even the most ordinary person can make it happen,” he said, “and all you need for that is a blank piece of paper and a pen. That miracle is the telling of your own story.”
Nineteen years ago, at age 73, Fugard said he had reserved his grave in the cemetery in the village of Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo where he had a home and where artist Helen Martins’ Owl House and Camel Yard inspired his play ‘The Road to Mecca’.
He had also decided on the inscription for his gravestone, explaining the background to it: “One day in the Karoo, before my knees gave in, I went for a run and was battling up a hill while a group of black children were watching me. As I ran past them, one of them called out: ‘Hou so aan, Oubaas – jy kom eerste!’ (‘Keep going, Oubaas – you’re coming first!’. Those are the words I want on my gravestone.”
Fortunately we still had almost two decades of Fugard’s presence and his enriching, perspective-changing work as a playwright, novelist, actor and director. In over 30 plays he fearlessly exposed the devastation and distortion of living under apartheid, chronicling the lives of poor, disempowered and dysfunctional South Africans, sharing the complex relationships between ordinary people shaped by the apartheid and post-apartheid years, and questioning what being human means.
Fugard was born in Middleburg, Karoo, on the 11th of June 1932 to Irish and Afrikaans parents. His family moved to Port Elizabeth in 1935 and struggled to make ends meet, with his mother being the family of five’s breadwinner, running a boarding house and later a tea room in St George’s Park which provided the setting for one of Fugard’s most popular plays, Master Harold … and the Boys (1982).
He studied Philosophy and Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town but dropped out and hitchhiked from Cape Town to Cairo. In Port Said he joined the crew of a cargo ship as a deckhand and spent the next few years sailing the world.
He subsequently returned to South Africa and was employed as a clerk in the Native Commissioners’ Court in Johannesburg in the 1950s where his eyes were opened to the injustices of apartheid. During this time, his black friends introduced him to township life in Sophiatown, which inspired No-Good Friday and Nongogo.
He organised a number of multiracial private theatre performances, writing, producing, directing and acting in several plays, working closely with his friend and colleague, actor Zakes Mokae. In The Blood Knot (1961) they performed as mixed-race half-brothers. The play was the turning point in Fugard’s writing career and the start of his international recognition as it was subsequently staged in London and adapted into a BBC television production.
In the early 1960s in his home town of Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), Fugard formed the Serpent Players with a group of prominent black actors who developed and performed plays that were regularly staged in the townships, often under surveillance by the Security Police. During this time he formed enduring collaboration with actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona.
Some of his best-known works are: Boesman and Lena (1969), Sizwe Banzi is Dead (1972), The Island (1972), Tsotsi (1980) and The Road to Mecca (1984). Tsotsi was initially written by Fugard in 1961 but published as a novel in 1981. It was subsequently made into a movie directed by Gavin Hood, for which it won an Oscar in 2006 for Best Foreign Language Film.
Life was not easy for the Fugard family during apartheid. They were constantly harassed by the police; their phones were tapped and they were subjected to midnight police searches at their home. His passport was taken away for several years and his plays banned. He had to publish and produce them outside of South Africa for many years.
Fugard’s My Children! My Africa! (1989) marked his return to South African theatre after more than a decade without a premiere here. In the 1990s, he continued producing thought-provoking works such as Playland (1992) and My Life (1994), which addressed South Africa’s transition to democracy.
Fugard once said he had wondered when South Africa became a democracy whether his writing would fall into insignificance and he would lose his purpose in life. “And then I suddenly realised, that is a load of bullshit!” he said. “I am a storyteller and that will never change.”
Later in life, he and his first wife, the poet, novelist and actress Sheila Fugard (nee Meiring) with whom he has a daughter, Lisa, lived in San Diego, California for a few years where he taught at the University of California and at Indiana University in Bloomington. Fugard enjoyed a substantial following in the United States and the United Kingdom, but he was always going to return to his home country.
Fugard’s first marriage ended after five decades. His second wife is academic and playwright, Paula Fourie, with whom he celebrated his 92nd birthday last year. They have two children, Halle and Lanigan, and moved to Stellenbosch some seven years ago.
Fugard was awarded many honours in his lifetime, including being named by Time in 1985 as "the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world"; awarded Broadway’s top honour, a Tony Lifetime Achievement Award; and South Africa’s Ikhamanga Medal.
Fugard appreciated the recognition and the opportunities this presented, but made the point in Exits and Entrances that when everything is stripped away from us, what we are left with is humility.
And so it is that we bid farewell to our shining storyteller whose works will never lose their relevance. Goodbye Dr Fugard, may your soul rest in contentment. Nelson Mandela University sends our deep condolences to your family, may they find comfort.