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 Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard (; 11 June 19328 March 2025) was a South African playwright, novelist, actor and director. Widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright and acclaimed as "the greatest active playwright in the English-speaki ...

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, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, England 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. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

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

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

, 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. After almost 60 years of marriage, they divorced in 2015. 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 Khoemana (also known as !Orakobab or Korana) word is a semidesert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is ...

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

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

who gets entangled in a rape case between a young colored boy and a young Boer girl with developmental disabilities. ''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 lived in the United States since 1980 and is herself a novelist.

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 a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

, 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 Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

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

References

External links

"Sheila Fugard"
(Index of articles) at '' Highbeam.com''. {{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