Renowned South African playwright, producer and composer Mbongeni Ngema has died in a car crash at age 68, his family says.

“Ngema was killed in a head-on car accident while returning from a funeral he was attending in Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape this evening,” his family said in a statement on Wednesday.

The celebrated playwright was a passenger in the vehicle involved in the crash.

He was best known for creating the hit Sarafina! which premiered on Broadway in 1988.

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It was adapted into a musical drama starring Whoopi Goldberg in 1992 which became an international success and was nominated for Tony and Grammy awards.

Sarafina! tells the story of a young student who inspires her peers to fight against racial segregation in apartheid South Africa after her teacher is jailed.

Apartheid was an institutionalised system that discriminated against non-whites and ensured South Africa was ruled by the minority white population from 1948 until the early 1990s.

Ngema’s body of work includes the much-acclaimed theatre production Woza Albert, which first showed in 1981 and went on to win more than 20 awards across the world.