Fatima Dike, also known as Fatts Dike (born 13 September 1948) is a South African playwright and theatre director.[1][2] After writing The Sacrifice of Kreli in 1976, she became the first black South African woman to have a play published.[3]

Life

Royline Fatima Dike was born in Langa, Cape Town on 13 September 1948.[4] She was educated at Langa church schools until the government took them over in the 1950s. She was later sent to boarding school run by Irish nuns in Rustenburg.[5]

After leaving school she had a variety of jobs, including work in a steakhouse, a butcher's shop, a bookshop and a supermarket.[3] In 1972 she volunteered at the non-racial Space Theatre in Cape Town, where she was encouraged to write The Sacrifice of Kreli, about a king who takes himself into exile rather than be enslaved by the British.[5]

From 1979 to 1983 she lived in the United States, participating in a writers' conference at the University of Iowa and working with theatre groups in New York City. She took courses at New York University, though when she enrolled in a playwriting class with Ed Bullins he told her she was too experienced to be in his class.[5]

Dike lives in Langa.[5]

Plays

• The Sacrifice of Kreli. Xhosa and English, 1976.
• The First South African, 1977
• The Crafty Tortoise, 1978
• Glass House, 1979
• So What's New?, 1991
• Streetwalking and Company Valet Service, 2000

References

На других языках

[ru] Дике, Фатима