President Cyril Ramaphosa has lauded the late dramatist, novelist and actor Athol Fugard as “an extraordinary storyteller in extraordinary times, and the moral conscience of a generation.”
Fugard passed away on Sunday, 9 March 2025 at the age of 93.
“Beyond the impressive body of work that he has left behind, Athol Fugard will be remembered for being an outlier amongst the millions of white South Africans who blithely turned a blind eye to the injustices being perpetrated in their name,” President Ramaphosa said.
In the late 1950s Fugard worked as a clerk in the Native Commissioner’s Court in Johannesburg, which would significantly impact his world-view and shape his political consciousness.
He was renowned for collaborating across the racial divide at a time when the mixing of the races was forbidden, and founded several theatre companies alongside black actors.
Fugard’s body of works include the plays No Good Friday, The Blood Knot, Master Harold and the Boys, and Sizwe Bansi is Dead.
His 1980 novel Tsotsi was adapted for film by the director Gavin Hood and won an Academy Award in 2005.
In his play, The Island, co-written with theatre legends Winston Ntshona and John Kani, the cruelty and dehumanisation wrought by apartheid was laid bare in the starkest terms on a naked floor replicating a prison cell on Robben Island.
In 1985 Athol Fugard was celebrated by Time magazine as the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world. He used this influential voice to rouse the consciences of international audiences in support of the anti-apartheid struggle “As a country we are grateful that we were able to honour the legendary Athol Fugard during his lifetime with the National Order of Ikhamanga in Silver,” President Ramaphosa said.
“The Fugard Theatre in District Six in Cape Town stands as a fitting tribute to a man whose life and works have left an indelible footprint, and that will continue to inspire generations of creative professionals for time to come,” the President added.
Africa Fact: A larger share of the pie is staying on the continent – Of the entities doing business in Africa, companies that are based in Africa or local African offices of international companies report larger increases in revenue and profitability than their internationally based or located peers,
Dez North
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”
Granola
Fun South African Fact: South African fish migration is so huge you can see it from space.