Fugard’s celebrated plays included Boesman and Lena, which looked at the difficult circumstances of a mixed-race couple. Having premiered in 1969, it was made into a film in 2000 starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett.
His novel, Tsotsi, was also made into a film, winning the 2006 Oscar for best foreign language movie.
The premier of South Africa’s Western Cape province, Alan Winde, said that Fugard had a “penetrating, sharp wit”, and his “acute understanding of our country’s political and cultural make-up is unmatched”.
“He will be sorely missed,” Winde added.
Other well-known plays by Fugard include Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island, which he co-wrote with the actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona, in a powerful condemnation of life on Robben Island, where anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.
In a simple tribute on X, Kani posted: “I am deeply saddened by the passing of my dear friend Athol Fugard. May his soul rest in eternal peace. Elder 🌹”
Fugard won several awards for his work, and received a lifetime achievement honour at the prestigious Tony awards in 2011, while Time magazine described him in 1985 as the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world.
“Apartheid defined me, that is true… But I am proud of the work that came out of it, that carries my name,” Fugard told the AFP news agency in 1995.
Fugard feared that the end of apartheid in 1994 could leave him with little to do, but he still found enough material to write.
In a BBC interview in 2010, he said that he shared the view of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu that “we have lost our way” as a nation.
“I think the present society in South Africa needs the vigilance of writers, every bit as much as the old one did.
“It is a responsibility that young writers, playwrights, must really wake up to and understand that responsibility is theirs, just as it was mine and a host of other writers in the earlier years.”
Additional reporting by the BBC’s Elettra Neysmith.
