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Ronnie Govender
Lifetime Achievement Literary Award
 Ronnie Govender was born in Cato Manor, Durban in 1934 and was educated in Durban where he worked for the better part of his life.Govender has close to 15 plays to his credit. For his collection of short stories, At the Edge and Other Cato Manor Stories, he received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Africa region. During his eleven-year teaching career, Govender wrote and directed his first play, Beyond Calvary, which received critical acclaim. As a protest against bourgeois theatre he formed the Shah Theatre Academy to foster indigenous theatre and pioneer the cultural boycott. In keeping with the cultural boycott The Lahnee’s Pleasure, one of South Africa’s longest running plays, refused invitations to play at establishment venues in London. His most well known play, At the Edge, was invited to countries all over the world, and won Vita nominations for Best South African Playwright and Best Actor. In 1991 Govender was appointed Marketing Manager of the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town, and two years later appointed director of Durban’s Playhouse Theatre.

In 2005 Ronnie Govender was a finalist in the inaugural European Union Literary Prize for his then-unpublished novel Song of the Altman. In 2006 Jacana subsequently published the novel. Ronnie is a recipient of the 2006 South African Literary Awards in the category “Life-time Achievement Literary Award”

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