Peter Gordon Rodda

Background

Peter Rodda was born on August 5, 1937, in Piet Retief, South Africa.

Education

Peter Rodda attended Kearsney College in Natal. He studied at the universities of Natal and Cape Town.

Career

After college, Peter Rodda became a high school teacher in Natal and, later, a lecturer in English at Rhodes University and the University of South Africa. His association with the liberal party and the Communist Congress of Democrats, as well as his strong stance against apartheid, led the South African government to imprison and interrogate him in 1964.

Rodda subsequently managed to leave his native country and move to England, where he found a teaching job in Hertfordshire and began writing plays about his South African experiences. His career as a playwright developed. The Time of Breaking (1975), based on his experience as a prisoner, Biko, performed and co-written by Alton Kumalo, played both in the London fringe and the provinces, and Bush People was read in the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs, and Tiger's Night (1977). But intermittent mental illness hindered his progress and, though his treatment was effective from the mid-1970s, the onset of cancer brought his literary work to an end.

Achievements

• Peter Rodda is best remembered for his political activism and plays. His works were praised by his colleagues and critics.

Politics

During his student years, Peter Rodda became a member of South Africa's liberal party and wrote for student magazines and newspapers, sometimes penning satirical pieces attacking the political right. He was a campaigner against apartheid.

Personality

Peter Rodda was generous to assist other writers and researchers. The scene of this vicarious literary life was his book-crammed Shepherd's Bush flat, a Mecca for visitors from southern Africa, and for his host of exiled and English friends. His warmth of personality brought people to him in droves, though many were deeply saddened by his bodily state – an amputated leg never healed. He himself was philosophical, almost light-hearted, about his physical ills.

Connections

In 1964 Peter Rodda married Barbara Bruce. They had one son. In 1975 the couple divorced.

Spouse:

Barbara Bruce

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2011