This resulted in the white minority (who comprised 13 percent of the population) holding 80 percent of the land. A series of racist legislation established places where members of each group could live and work. A fourth category, Indian, was later added. The population was classified into four groups: Bantu (black Africans), White, and Coloured (a term which denoted a person was of mixed-race descent). Apartheid consisted of a system of institutional segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. In 2012 he relocated to South Africa, where he now lives permanently.īoesman and Lena is set in South Africa during a period known as apartheid. Fugard has written over 30 plays, and in 2011 was awarded a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Following the dismantling of apartheid in 1990-1991, Fugard focus turned increasingly to his personal history in his writing. He continued to perform with them through the 1970s and early 1980s. He debuted many plays, including Boesman and Lena, and also performed the works of other major playwrights with a group called the Serpent Players, a group that consisted largely of black men. He began writing plays to expose those injustices, and also created a multiracial theater. He moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1958, where he worked as a clerk in a Native Commissioners’ Court, which made him very aware of the injustices of apartheid. He then spent two years working in East Asia on a steamer ship, where he began writing. He studied philosophy and social anthropology at the University of Cape Town, but dropped out before his final examinations.

In 1935, his family moved to Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Fugard was born in South Africa in 1932 to English and Afrikaner parents.

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