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.
Personal history
Born in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
,
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 Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
, 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
Athol Fugard 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 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, 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
*
"Lady of Realisation'. 1st ed. Cape Town: Maitri Publications, 1984. Copyright ©
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 ...
, No. Txu 140-945. Cape Town: Electronic Ed., luxlapis.tripod.com. 19 Apr. 1999. Accessed 30 Sept. 2008. (In 3 parts.)
Buddhist_
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_Freda_Bedi.html" ;"title="Buddhism.html" "title=" "spiritual biography" of Buddhism">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 ...