Alfred Hutchinson (1924 in

Hectorspruit Hectorspruit, officially Emjejane, is a small farming town situated between Kaapmuiden and Komatipoort on a southern tributary of the Crocodile River in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The farms in the region produce sugarcane, subtropical fruit and ...

Transvaal Province The Province of the Transvaal ( af, Provinsie van Transvaal), commonly referred to as the Transvaal (; ), was a province of South Africa from 1910 until 1994, when a new constitution subdivided it following the end of apartheid. The name "Trans ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

– 14 October 1972 in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

) was a South African author, teacher and activist. Hutchinson went to Swedish missionary school, graduated from St Peter's College in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

and received his BA from the

University of Fort Hare The University of Fort Hare is a public university in Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa. It was a key institution of higher education for Africans from 1916 to 1959 when it offered a Western-style academic education to students from across sub ...

. He was classified as

coloured Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...

by the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

government, but saw himself as an African and dismissed the coloureds' struggle to be seen as a distinct people. He worked as a teacher, but was a member of the

ANC The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election installe ...

, and was sacked and jailed for two weeks in 1952 for his struggle against apartheid. In 1956 he was charged with high treason, and fled to Britain via East Africa and Ghana. His autobiography ''Road to Ghana'' (1960) is about this experience. In 1964 he published the play ''The Rain Killers''.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hutchinson, Alfred South African dramatists and playwrights 1924 births 1972 deaths South African autobiographers 20th-century dramatists and playwrights 20th-century South African historians South African emigrants to the United Kingdom