Peter Snyders

Peter Snyders (born 1939) [1]. Cape Town based playwright, short fiction writer, journalist and poet.

Biography

An articulate, provocative and popular speaker on literary issues. Trained and working as a laboratory assistant, he was a member of the Belhar Amateur Drama and became founder of and writer/director for Unison Players from 1975. He was also involved with Group 44 as founder(?*) and writer and worked with The Space Theatre. * Started out writing stories and poems, published in various journals. His collection of poems, collected as 'n Ordinary Mens ("An Ordinary person" - Kaaps or Cape Afrikaans) became widely read and discussed.

Snyders is one of the best examples of writers in so-called Kaaps (i.e. the "Cape Afrikaans" of the Cape Flats) and uses it in his poetry and in many of his plays.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

His plays include Voor dit gebeur (1975), Lied vir Lisa ("Song for Lisa" , 1979), Political Joke (1979, pub. 1983). Elke Ou Storie (“Every old story” – co-written with Group 44, 197*), Min Genade ("Little Mercy", 1983), Die Drein (197*). Has also written purely English plays, such as The birds and the boys (19*) and Violations (19*), The Final Sting of the Dying Wasp (co-written with Geraldine Aron, Dermod Judge, Russel Savadier, and others, The Space, 197*) **.

Sources

Astbury 1979.

January 1997.

Smith, Julian, 1990.

Correspondence ; diaries ; manuscripts ; clippings ; dramas ; music ; varia held by Stellenbosch University Library Document Centre MS 409.

Return to

Return to ESAT Personalities S

Return to South African Theatre Personalities

Return to Main Page