Sheila Meiring Fugard (born 1932 in England) is a writer of short stories and plays and the ex-wife of South African playwright

Athol Fugard Athol Fugard, Hon. , (born 11 June 1932), is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright. He is best known for his political and penetrating plays opposing the system of apart ...

Personal history

Born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1932, Sheila Meiring moved with her parents to

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 ...

, in 1940, when she was eight years old. She went to the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

, where she wrote short stories and studied theatre. She met playwright

when she acted in one of his plays. In September 1956, she married Fugard and adopted his surname. In 1972, when she was 40 years old, Sheila Fugard published her first novel, ''The Castaways'', which won the

Olive Schreiner Prize The Olive Schreiner Prize has been awarded annually since 1961 to emerging writers in the field of drama, prose, or poetry. It is named after Olive Schreiner, the South African author and activist. It rewards promising novice work, by writers who ...

. Subsequently, she published other novels, including ''Rite of Passage'', in 1976, and ''A Revolutionary Woman'', in 1983. ''A Revolutionary Woman'', her best-known novel, takes place in the 1920s in the

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...

district of South Africa and tells the story of a female disciple of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

who gets entangled in a rape case between a young colored boy and a young retarded Boer girl. ''Rite of Passage'' concerns a doctor and a young boy traumatized by a tribal circumcision ceremony. Fugard has also published collected poems, including ''Threshold'', in 1975, and ''Mystic Things'', in 1981. Athol Fugard acted in the BBC adaptation of her novel ''The Castaways''. Their daughter,

Lisa Fugard Lisa Fugard is a South African writer and actor. She was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the only child of playwright Athol Fugard and novelist Sheila Meiring Fugard. Career Fugard moved to New York City in 1980 to pursue an acting career, ...

, who has acted in some of her father's plays, such as ''My Children! My Africa!'', has also written a novel.

Bibliography

Novels

*''The Castaways'' (1972). . *''Rite of Passage'' (1976). . *''A Revolutionary Woman'' (1983). .

Poetry

*''Threshold'' (1975). . *''Mystic Things'' (1981). . *''The Magic Scattering Of A Life'' (2006). .

Biography

The Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, No. Txu 140-945. Cape Town: Electronic Ed., luxlapis.tripod.com. 19 Apr. 1999. Accessed 30 Sept. 2008. (In 3 parts.)

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

Sister Palmo.">Freda Bedi">Sister Palmo.

References

External links

"Sheila Fugard"
(Index of articles) at ''

Highbeam.com HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale (publisher), Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English ...

''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fugard, Sheila Meiring 1932 births Living people South African women poets University of Cape Town alumni Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands 20th-century South African poets 21st-century South African writers South African women novelists 20th-century South African novelists 20th-century South African women writers 21st-century South African women writers