Fagon: Plays: 11 Josephine House; the Death of a Black Man; Lonely Cowboy

by Alfred Fagon

Overview

Includes the plays 11 Josephine House, The Death of a Black Man and Lonely Cowboy

Jamaican-born Fagon came to England at the age of 18, working first on the railways, and then enlisting in the army, where he became a boxing champion. He soon became a leading figure in black theatre. His characters, with explosive consequences, struggle to live in a hostile British culture as exiles from their spiritual home. This collection spans the whole of Fagon’s remarkable writing career. He died in 1986 at the tragically early age of 49.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781840021370
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/01/2000
Series:	Oberon Modern Playwrights
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x 0.46(d)

About the Author

Alfred Fagon was born on 25 June, 1937 in Clarendon, Jamaica into a large and close family of eight brothers and two sisters. He left school at thirteen and worked with his father as a cultivator on their orange plantation. In 1955 he came to Nottingham in England and worked for British Rail amongst other jobs, and in 1958 joined the Royal Corps of Signals where he became Middleweight Boxing Champion in 1962, the year he left the Army. He went to live in Bristol where he trained and then worked as a welder. He started working as an actor and in 1970 he came to London to play in Mustapha Matura's 'Black Pieces' at the ICA the first of many roles, not just in the theatre but in television, film and radio. Alfred's final acting role in BBC Television's Fighting Back with Hazel O'Connor was filmed in St Paul's, Bristol. Alfred Fagon died of a heart attack on 29 August, 1986 at the age of forty-nine. The Alfred Fagon Award was established by his agent, Harriet Cruickshank.

Editorial Reviews

Fagon's writing is sharp, funny, unpretentious...(his) view of the black predicament is complex, thoughtful and compassionate” —Andrew Rissick, Time Out

From the Publisher