Ian Fraser (columnist)

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Ian Fraser is a South African playwright, writer, comedian, anti-Apartheid activist, artist, anarchist, and social agitator.

He began as South Africa's first street-level standup comedian, 'ranting-verse' poet, and extremely ascerbic anti-government satirist, later writing plays and at least one published book. Fraser has consistently been highly abrasive and anti-establishment.

Fraser did not finish high school, or have any formal training - but after being conscripted in the then South African Defence Force, for a 2 year period (1981 - 1982) - he began to write and perform his own material from 1985 onwards.

Fraser has won many awards for his plays, including the 1992 Amstel Playwright of the Year Award and the 1992 Tonight-AA Life Vita Award for Comedy, yet he remains relatively unacknowledged in South Africa today. His work and approach are similar in style and principle to those of Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, and his writing is similar to that of Bukowski, William Burroughs and Tom Stoppard. Fraser alternately produced works of serious brutality and violence and works that moved audiences with their sensitivity and grace. Two of his plays were performed in the USA by the First Banana Theater Company of Madison, Wisconsin, including one performance at the New York Fringe Theater Festival.

Alongside these various plays, he also performed his own yearly (8 in total) 'one man' satire shows.

His experiences in the South African Defence Force, provided much of the background for his first novel, My Own Private Orchestra. He began writing as an internet technology columnist in 1994 for the Johannesburg The Star newspaper.

From around 1994, he stepped away from much of the public performance - with sidesteps into Comedy Improv, as an interesting challenge - and began doing voice-over work for TV, radio, and movie advertisements.

Recently, Fraser has written the weekly Fraser's Razor column for the Mail and Guardian newspaper.

Fraser was threatened with police and legal action because of one of his fictional blog postings, "Killing the President."

After a number of years of growing creative and political dissatisfaction, in April 2006, Fraser relocated to the United States, where he is now a legal resident.

He is writing plays, and is beginning to focus on screenplays.