Book description
In December 2000, Pumla Lolwana pulled her three children close to
her body and stepped in front of a train on the railway tracks between
Philippi and Nyanga on the Cape Flats, South Africa. This true story
demanded Athol Fugard's attention and compelled him to write The Train
Driver; a beautiful and haunting play of redemptive power. The Train
Driver received its UK premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, in
November 2010. 'Brave, confrontational and tender . . . Essential
theatre viewing.' Sunday Times, South Africa
Athol Fugard was born in Middelburg, South Africa in 1932 and grew up
in Port Elizabeth, the setting for many of his plays. After spending two
years at the University of Cape Town and working as a deck hand, Fugard
took up acting and then started to write his own plays. He moved to
Johannesburg in 1958, where he set up a multi-racial theatre, for which
he wrote, directed and acted. His plays and attacks on apartheid have
brought him into conflict with the South African government, and in 1962
he supported an international boycott against the practice of
segregation of theatre audiences. Athol Fugard still lives in Port
Elizabeth, and also has a home in New York. Many of his plays are
published by Faber in its Contemporary Classics series.
