After reading a newspaper article on an automobile plant, Styles tells a humorous story to the audience about an incident that occurred when he worked at the Ford Motor Company.

He writes that when he arrived in Port Elizabeth from their home in King William’s Town, he stayed with a friend named Zola who tried to help Sizwe find a job.

Buntu finds that the man, named Robert Zwelinzima, has a work-seeker’s permit — the very thing that Sizwe needs to stay in town.

According to Marie Rose Napierkowski, in Drama for Students (Detroit: Gale, 2006; eNotes.com): The genesis of Sizwe Bansi Is Dead can be traced to Fugard’s experiences as a law clerk at the Native Commissioner’s Court in Johannesburg.

At that time it was required that every black and colored citizen over the age of sixteen carried [sic] an identity book that restricted employment and travel within the country.

Critics and scholars have also observed that Sizwe Bansi Is Dead contains elements of absurdism, especially its sparse setting and surreal subject matter.

[4]In 1972, Fugard directed the play's world premiere in Cape Town, followed the next year by a staging at London's Royal Court Theatre, which transferred to the Ambassadors, with Kani as Styles and Buntu and Ntshona as Robert/Sizwe.

After six previews, the Broadway production, presented in repertory with The Island, opened on 13 November 1974 at the Edison Theatre, where it ran for 159 performances.

Kani and Ntshona jointly won Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Play for their performances in both Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island.

[6] That year the play was translated into French by Marie-Hélène Estienne for a version staged by Peter Brook at the Barbican Centre.