Ronnie Govender
South African playwright
Sathiseelan Gurilingam "Ronnie" Govender (16 May 1934 – 29 April 2021) was a South African playwright, theatre director and activist known for his community theatre efforts. He was known as a pioneer of Indian South African theatre in the country. Some of his notable works included Black Chin White Chin, Song of the Atman, and At the Edge and Other Cato Manor Stories. At the Edge won the 1997 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best first book, Africa.
Govender received the government of South Africa's Order of Ikhamanga in 2008 for his contributions to democracy, peace and justice in the country through theatre.
Early life
Sathiseelan Gurilingam Govender was born on 16 May 1934 in Cato Manor, an Indian neighbourhood of Durban. His father was also born in Cato Manor, while his mother was born in Fynnlands, another part of Durban. His grandparents on both sides of the family came from South India. After completing their term of indenture, his grandparents settled in Cato Manor. Like other Indian families in South Africa, they bought a small plot of land to grow vegetables.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ronnie Govender” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.