Difference between revisions of "Ronnie Govender"
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His most celebrated play is ''[[The Lahnee’s Pleasure]]'' (first performed 1972 by [[TECON]], published 1977), while other works include ''[[Beyond Calvary]]'' (19**), ''[[Blossoms on the Bough]]'' (19**), ''[[The Dilemma of the Swami]]'' (1986) and one-man dramatizations of his short stories, performed by [[Charles Pillai]] under the title ''[[At the Edge]]'' (1991) and ''[[1949]]'' (1996). | His most celebrated play is ''[[The Lahnee’s Pleasure]]'' (first performed 1972 by [[TECON]], published 1977), while other works include ''[[Beyond Calvary]]'' (19**), ''[[Blossoms on the Bough]]'' (19**), ''[[The Dilemma of the Swami]]'' (1986) and one-man dramatizations of his short stories, performed by [[Charles Pillai]] under the title ''[[At the Edge]]'' (1991) and ''[[1949]]'' (1996). | ||
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| + | In 2006, Song of the Atman, which is partially set in “old” Cato Manor, was published. The book was also shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. | ||
== Awards, etc == | == Awards, etc == | ||
Revision as of 07:19, 17 May 2021
Ronnie Govender (1934-2021) [1] was a South African writer and playwright of Tamil descent.
Contents
Biography
Born Sathiseelan Gurilingam Govender in Cato Manor on 16 May 1934, one of ten children, their a bakery van driver and their mother a housewife. Popularly known as Ronnie Govender, a name he also publishing under.
His father was a bakery van driver and his mother a housewife. Govender has 10 siblings.
Govender attended the Cato Manor Government Aided Indian School and then went to Sastri College. After finishing his primary and secondary education, Govender got a job working for an agricultural implements company and at the same time he did part-time sports writing for the magazine Graphic.
In the 1950s he began to involve himself in cultural politics. For example, he, Slim Moodley, Muthal Naidoo and Prem Singh formed the Durban Theatre Association, inter alia producing a South African version of the Greek classical play Antigone.
The Association folded when Govender moved to Cape Town to attend the University of Cape Town (UCT) for one year, while once more working as a sportswriter (for the radical journal New Age) to pay his fees. As a journalist he attacked racism in sport and that stance soon attracted the attention of the Special Branch. When the newspaper was closed by the authorities after a year, he returned to Durban to train as a teacher at Springfield Training College in Asherville, Durban, and took up a teaching position. In the 1970s he ran the Aquarius Restaurant in Reservoir Hills, which he also fitted up as a theatre venue to stage his plays and that of fellow playwrights, making it one of the most popular entertainment venues of the time
He was at one time vice-president of the Natal Congress of South African Writers.
In 1991 Govender was appointed marketing manager of the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town, and two years later, in 1993, was appointed director of Durban’s Playhouse Theatre.
Among the awards he received over the years are the 1997 Commonwealth Writers' Prize the African section for best first book (for his short story collection At the Edge and Other Cato Manor Stories); In 2000 Govender was awarded a medal by the English Academy of SA for his contribution to English literature; in 2007 Black Chin White Chin was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize; in 2008 he received the South African Order of Ikhamanga for his contribution to democracy and justice in South Africa through the genre of theatre; and in 2014 he received an honorary doctorate "for his contribution to literature and the arts in general as well as his contribution to democracy, peace and justice in South Africa through theatre" from the Durban University of Technology.
Govender passed away on 29 April 2021.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
Govender began his career as a writer with the play Beyond Calvary (1962) and in 1964 he, Muthal Naidoo and Bennie Bersee co-founded the Shah Theatre Academy in Durban.
He is one of the founding members of Shah Theatre Academy in the early 1960s and TECON in 1969.
His most celebrated play is The Lahnee’s Pleasure (first performed 1972 by TECON, published 1977), while other works include Beyond Calvary (19**), Blossoms on the Bough (19**), The Dilemma of the Swami (1986) and one-man dramatizations of his short stories, performed by Charles Pillai under the title At the Edge (1991) and 1949 (1996).
In 2006, Song of the Atman, which is partially set in “old” Cato Manor, was published. The book was also shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
Awards, etc
He was awarded the Commonwealth Writer's Prize in 1997.
The Ronnie Govender Literary Award is named after him.
Sources
Wikipedia [2].
Various entries in the NELM catalogue.
Sunday Tribune, 18 March 2007.
Tribute by his daughter, Pregs Govender, published in Daily Maverick, 14 May 2021 [3].
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