Lewis Sowden
Lewis Sowden (1905-1974). Journalist, critic, dramatist, novelist and poet, was born in Manchester, England.
Contents
Biography
Lewis was married to Dora Sowden. They left South Africa for Israel in 1966. He died there in 1974.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
Sowden was a highly respected theatre critic for Rand Daily Mail in 1940-1960s.
As a theatre critic and historian wrote Both Sides of the Mask; The World of Muriel Alexander (1964).
As a playwright he is best known for the highly successful The Kimberley Train (written and performed in 1958, published in 1976), a play on miscegenation and the tragedy of characters to “trying for white” under the apartheid laws. Other plays include: The Fugitives (1934), The Man in Checks (1935), Red Rand (1937), The Gold Earth (1944) and Contact Five (1945).
Sources
Tucker, 1997. 118-9, 141, 222.
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