WeeklySA_AdminDEPARTED: The actress and writer moved between television, theatre and scholarship, contributing to some of South Africa’s best-known dramas while creating space for stories about black women’s lives…
By Lehlohonolo Lehana
Actress, scriptwriter and creative entrepreneur Sibusisiwe Gugu Manqele, whose work reached audiences through Intersexions, Skeem Saam, Gomora and House of Zwide, has died at the age of 35.
Her family confirmed that she died on Thursday, October 22, 2026, after spending more than a week in hospital with a cardiac condition.
While viewers knew her through her screen performances, Manqele’s contribution to South African storytelling extended behind the camera. She was a writer, voice artist, theatre practitioner and scholar whose career combined popular entertainment with independent creative work.
Her screenwriting credits included Gomora, House of Zwide, Skeem Saam and Umkhokha. Her professional portfolio records work on the first two seasons of Gomora, the first season of House of Zwide and several seasons of Skeem Saam.
Raised in Ulundi in northern KwaZulu-Natal, Manqele discovered the pleasure of storytelling long before she entered a television studio. The schoolchildren who shared her transport became an early audience, with lengthy journeys providing time to invent stories and entertain one another.
In a 2024 interview with Wits Vuvuzela, she recalled how those childhood commutes helped nurture her imagination. That instinct later informed her university audition: without a formal drama background, she adapted a school novel into a performance that secured her entry into Wits’ dramatic arts programme.
Manqele’s academic achievements included a Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Arts with honours, an honours qualification in creative writing and a master’s degree in film and television from Wits University.
Her commitment to learning continued alongside her professional work. In 2023, the University of KwaZulu-Natal profiled her as a doctoral candidate and recipient of an Andrew Mellon Doctoral Scholarship. She had also received a writing fellowship at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study.
Her early television career included production work on the SABC3 magazine programme Flash! and moderation work on Big Brother Africa. She also worked as a translator for Daily Sun TV and appeared as a guest presenter on YOTV Crib Notes.
Her acting breakthrough came with the second season of SABC1’s Intersexions, broadcast in 2013. She subsequently appeared in Mzansi Magic’s Saints and Sinners, adding to a career that encompassed performance, production and writing.
Theatre offered another avenue for her creativity. She wrote the plays Yini? / What Is It? and Migration of the Heart, and worked as assistant director on Pass Over, staged at the Market Theatre in 2021.
Through her production company, CONTENTWOOD, founded in 2020, Manqele pursued independent projects alongside her television work. She wrote, performed in and executive produced the short film Questions.
Drawing on poetry, the experimental film explored mental health and black women’s experiences. She presented it in Paris at the Communicating Multi-Modally: Research and Expressive Culture event in May 2022. Her interest in women’s experiences also informed her broader ambition to bring less visible narratives to the screen.
In 2023, Manqele was recognised among the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans, acknowledging a career that brought together artistic practice, research and entrepreneurship.
A university profile published that year recorded her involvement in projects concerned with employment opportunities for women and social cohesion in entertainment. She also credited the encouragement of her teachers with helping her develop confidence and perseverance.
“Affirmation by my teachers shaped me to be courageous, hardworking, and resilient,” she said.
Her career leaves a record of a storyteller determined to work across disciplines — performing characters, writing their worlds and examining whose experiences find a place in South African cultural life. – Fullview
