South Africa, March 10 -- Named the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world by Time magazine in 1989, the Eastern Cape-born Fugard wrote about the dawning of his political awareness of the destructive forces of apartheid on humaneness and about the resilience of ordinary people.

He grew up poor with his mother being the family of five's breadwinner, running a Gqeberha boarding house, and later a tea room in the then popular St George's Park that provided the setting for one of his most popular plays, Master Harold ... and the Boys (1982).

He shot to fame internationally with Blood Knot (1961). Other well-known works include Boesman and Lena (1969), Sizwe Banzi is Dead (1972), The Island (1972), Tsotsi (1980) and The Roa...