Sibusisiwe Gugu Manqele

Sibusisiwe Gugu Manqele died on Thursday, 22 October 2026, at the age of 35. Her family said she had spent more than a week in hospital with a cardiac condition; no further medical detail has been made public. The family announced the death in a statement, calling it a devastating loss and thanking those who had offered support and prayers.

Hours before her death, the University of KwaZulu-Natal received the examiners' reports on her doctoral thesis about Black women showrunners, confirming that she had met the requirements for the PhD subject to recommended corrections.

News of her death was reported by the Daily Sun, News24 and other outlets on 24 and 25 October 2026. Tributes came from colleagues including Zola Hashatsi, Zola Nombona, Thembisa Mdoda-Nxumalo and Gugu Gumede, and from viewers who remembered her kindness and willingness to speak her mind. Funeral arrangements had not been publicly announced at the time of writing.

Sibusisiwe Gugu Manqele was born in Ulundi, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Reports of her death at the age of 35 place her birth around 1991; her exact date of birth has not been published. Her love of writing showed early: in 2007, as a teenager, she won a writing competition run by the Durban Business Women's Association.

She went on to the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Arts with honours, an honours degree in Creative Writing and a Master of Arts in Film and Television. Wits gave her a Postgraduate Merit Award in 2019. She later received an Andrew W. Mellon doctoral scholarship and enrolled for a PhD in Culture, Communication and Media Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

After completing her first studies in 2011, Manqele worked across many parts of the television industry. She was a production assistant on the second season of the SABC3 magazine programme Flash!, a moderator on Big Brother Africa, a translator for Daily Sun TV, a video jockey on Vuzu's Hit Refresh, a guest presenter on SABC1's YOTV Crib Notes, a promo director and a digital publisher.

Her screen acting debut was a starring role in the SABC1 drama series Intersexions 2 in 2013. She later had a feature role in the first season of Mzansi Magic's Saints and Sinners.

She became best known as a television writer. Her credits include Gomora seasons 1 and 2, House of Zwide season 1, Skeem Saam seasons 11, 12 and 13, and Umkhokha: The Curse season 2. Her Skeem Saam work brought her a South African Film and Television Award for Best Achievement in Scriptwriting for a TV soap at the 18th SAFTAs.

She was also a busy isiZulu voice artist on radio and television adverts, a playwright whose works included Yini? (What Is It?) and Migration of the Heart, assistant director on the play Pass Over at the Market Theatre in 2021, and writer, star and executive producer of the short film Questions. In 2020 she founded ContentWood, a production and entertainment company focused on what she called restorative narratives. In 2021 she held a writing fellowship at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, and she gave a keynote at the inaugural Gibson Kente Lecture.

Manqele's family described faith as the cornerstone of her life. "Above all, Sibusisiwe loved God, and her faith was at the heart of everything she did," they said in their statement. She was committed to education and to the isiZulu language, and spoke publicly as an advocate for authentic South African stories told in local languages. Details of her private and family life beyond this have not been widely reported.

Manqele's legacy lies in the stories she helped bring to South African screens and in her insistence that those stories be told in local voices and languages. As a writer on Gomora, House of Zwide, Skeem Saam and Umkhokha, she shaped storylines followed by millions of viewers, and her SAFTA for Skeem Saam recognised that work. Her academic research on Black women showrunners, completed just before her death, adds a scholarly record of the industry she worked in, and her company ContentWood reflected her wish to create opportunities for others, including a planned documentary meant to create employment for women. She was named one of the Mail and Guardian's 200 Young South Africans in 2023.