Fatima Dike was born in Langa and lives there to this day. It inspires her writing; life on the streets, gossip and flirtations, children at play all add to the tapestry of storytelling and the story of her own Xhosa people.
She spent a number of years in exile and lived for four years in New York. While there she experienced life without Apartheid could be.
Her awareness of theatre, came via poetry, introduced to her by a friend Sue Clarke. At the age of 24 she met Brain Astbury who had established the Space Theatre. She was given a backstage job where she met Rob Amato who encouraged her to write the play The Sacrifice of Kreli, later published and performed at the Market. She became the resident playwright at the Space and when the Space closed it was Fatima’s play Glasshouses that was chosen for the last performance.
Today she runs the Siyanago Theatre Group which she co-founded with Roy Sargeant, assisting young writers skirt the problems she encountered on the path to realising her dreams.
