In order to perpetuate white rule in South Africa, they brought a catalogue of draconian laws aimed at apartheid which in Afrikaans meant separateness. During this period, South Africa was run by the white Afrikaner National Party.

The most renowned inmate of this prison was Nelson Mandela who spent twenty-seven years incarcerated here. The notorious island prison called Robben Island is the setting for this play. He has also acted in movies like Attenborough’s Gandhi and The Killing Fields which is about the Pol Pot regime’s massacre of innocent Cambodians. He won several awards and a lot of his plays have been converted into movies. Fugard’s plays kept the issue of the absence of individual freedom in South Africa at the forefront and drew the whole world’s attention to it. His passport was revoked when his play Blood Knot was staged in England and his criticism of the practice of segregating theatre audiences in South Africa brought on more restrictions. Later, he organized a multiracial theatre which caused a direct confrontation with the white government. His job as a court clerk made him keenly aware of the injustices of apartheid which is the theme for most of his plays. Later, Fugard returned to South Africa and married Shiela Meiring, an actress, who ignited in him the love for theatre. Along with a friend, he hitchhiked till Port Sudan in North Africa where he worked on a steamship. Then dropped out a few months before the final examination. He went on to study anthropology and philosophy at the University of Cape Town. He grew up in Port Elizabeth which forms the setting for most plays. Analysis of the Island by Athol Fugard – Athol Fugard was born to an English father of mixed European descent and an Afrikaner mother.

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