Athol Fugard

"The five works in this new selection by the dramatist Athol Fugard explore the interior lives of their characters. Emerging from an embattled society - their first production coincided with the collapse of liberal politics and the rise of Black Consciousness in South Africa - they offer testimony of the playwright's reflections upon the intimacy of tyranny." "Apart from the Man in Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act, the central characters are all white South Africans; of these, several are women, ranging from the middle-aged Milly (in People Are Living There), who rages wonderfully against the dying of the light, to the psychologically wounded Gladys (in A Lesson from Aloes), teetering despairingly on the edge of madness."--Jacket

"The Train Driver is classic Athol Fugard, and one of his most important plays. The playwright, known throughout the world as a chronicler of his native South Africa's apartheid past, directed its premiere at the newly opened Fugard Theater in one of Cape Town's most politically contentious areas. This seminal work was inspired by the true story of a mother who, with her three children, committed suicide on the train tracks in Cape Town. The two-person drama unfolds between the train's engineer and the grave digger who buries the ones without names. This edition also includes Coming Home, Fugard's first work addressing AIDS in South Africa, and Have You Seen Us? his first play set in America, about a South African transplanted to San Diego, where the playwright currently resides."--Publisher's description.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band, by Arthur Conan Doyle Death Arrives on Schedule, by Hansjörg Martin The Feeling of Power, by Isaac Asimov The Expedition, by Rudolf Lorenzen The Cegua, by Robert D. San Souci Master and Man, by Leo Tolstoy Just Lather, That's All by Hernando Téllez Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga Marriage Is a Private Affair, by Chinua Achebe Cranes, by Hwang Sun-won Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Gir, by Anne Frank Letter to Indira Tagore, by Rabindranath Tagore Letter to the Rev. J. H. Twichell, by Mark Twain When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, by Le Ly Hayslip By Any Other Name, by Santha Rama Rau Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane China Men, by Maxine Hong Kingston The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank, by Willy Lindwer Account Evened With India, Says P.M., From Dawn Tests Are Nowhere Near India's: Fernandes, From The Times of India Pakistan Nuclear Moratorium Welcomed, From the BBC Online Network The Frightening Joy, From De Volkskrant Building Atomic Security, From Zycie Warszawy Macbeth, by William Shakespeare "Master Harold"... and the Boys, by Athol Fugard The Stronger, by August Strindberg The Diameter of the Bomb, by Yehuda Amichai Taking Leave of a Friend, by Li Po Thoughts of Hanoi, by Nguyen Thi Vinh Mindoro, by Ramón Sunico Ode to a Pair of Socks, by Pablo Neruda Haiku by Matsuo Bashō Haiku by Takarai Kikaku Haiku by Anonymous Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, by Dylan Thomas Letter to the English, by Joan of Arc Nobel Lecture, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn Gettysburg Address, by Abraham Lincoln Inaugural Address, by John F. Kennedy Of Repentance, by Michel de Montaigne A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift Cup Inanity and Patriotic Profanity, From the Buenos Aires Herald Staying at a Japanese Inn: Peace, Tranquillity, Insects, by Dave Barry Why Can't We Have Our Own Apartment?, by Erma Bombeck Lohengrin, by Leo Slezak A Wedding Without Musicians, by Sholom Aleichem

This autobiographical work by one of Europe's best known convert to Islam gives us a rounded portrait of a man in search of adventure and truth. It is part spiritual autobiography, part summary of the author's intuitive insights into Islam and the Arabs, part an impressive travelogue. Punctuated with abundant adventure, moments of contemplation, colorful narrative, brilliant description and lively anecdote, it tells above all a human story, a story of a modern man's restlessness and loneliness, passions and ambitions, joys and sorrows, anxiety and commitment, vision and humaneness.

The 18 plays are: The Shadowy Waters; Cathleen in Houlihan; The Hour Glass; On Baile's Strabd; The Green Helmet; Deirdre; At the Hawk's Well; The Dreaming of the Bones; The Cat and the Moon; The Only Jealousy of Emer; Calvary; Sophocles' King Oedipus; The Resurrection; The Words Upon the Windwo-FPane; The King of the Great Clock Tower; The herne's Egg; Purgatory; The Death of Cuchulain.

Rarely has a playwright been so closely identified with his country and his people as Athol Fugard. Fugard's extensive body of work has served as one of the moral beacons in the bleak world of South Africa, and now, in Valley Song - this coming-of-age story about a young girl seeking the courage to embrace the future while her grandfather searches for the wisdom to let go of the past - he applies his great gift to the work of healing and of envisioning the future.