Why Did Athol Fugard Write Tsotsi?

Athol was trying to get a job as a stagehand at the Royal Court and I was working as a temp at Marks & Spencer,' she explains. 'He was having difficulty writing a new play, and he had this reservoir of township experience, so he began writing Tsotsi very roughly.

What inspired Tsotsi?

Influenced by the author's visit to Sophiatown near Johannesburg, Tsotsi was written between 1958 and 1962, but then Fugard put the manuscript away and did not think it was “worth publishing and did not show or submit it to anyone” (Kaplan in Fugard 2009:239).

When did Athol Fugard write Tsotsi?

''Tsotsi'' is the novel that Mr. Fugard completed and put aside in 1961. It was published first in 1980, in England and in South Africa and its American publisher tells us that the book was ''forgotten by Fugard, and only recently came to light through the researches of two South African graduate students.