Achmat Dangor
Achmat Dangor. (1948-2020) Novelist, playwright and poet.
Contents
Biography
Dangor was born in Johannesburg in 1948 and after high school, lived in several small rural South African towns. He studied literature at Rhodes University, Grahamstown.
He was one of the founding members of the Congress of South African Writers.
His membership of the cultural group Black Thoughts led to his banning for six years (1973-1978). He subsequently taught creative writing at City University in New York, before returning to South Africa, where he worked for Kagiso and the Independent Development Trust. He later headed up various non-governmental organisations in South Africa, including the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and was the Southern Africa Representative for the Ford Foundation. On his return to South Africa he worked for Kagiso and the Independent Development Trust. In 2000 he was attached to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.
Achmat Dangor passed away on the 6 September 2020.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
His creative writing includes poetry (published in the journals Wietie and Staffrider, anthologised in A Century of South African Poetry in 1981 and published in the collection Bulldozer in 1983). He also wrote the novel Bitter Fruit and one play, Majiet.
Awards, etc
Winner of the Mofolo-Plomer Prize for the short story Waiting for Leila (1981).
Awarded the Herman Charles Bosman Prize (1997)
Received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (2003)
His novel Bitter Fruitwas shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2004.
In 2015 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the South African Literary Awards (SALA).
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achmat_Dangor
https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/achmat-dangor
NELM catalogue.
Beeld, 6 August 2000.
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