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I have always loved plays. As a child, I wrote several, and I still vividly remember coaxing my siblings and cousins into enacting some of them. Many years later, as a literature student in the university, I preferred studying plays to novels as part of my course work, because they were shorter, and there was always the opportunity to see some of them staged at the university theatre. But these days, novels and poems are the prominent literary genres available, and plays are no longer as popular as they used to be. Drama, it seems, is being phased out of the literary experience.
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of books that will bring some drama to your reading. From the story about the struggles of women in war-torn Liberia to an exploration of the brutal realities faced by queer people for living authentically, these plays will spice up your reading with some drama.
Read our recommendations below.
anowa
author: ama ata aidoo
Genre: drama
Anowa is the story of a daughter who chases true love against her parents’ wishes, only to find herself in an undesirable situation.
Anowa is a young woman living in Gold Coast in the 1870s. Convinced of the importance of love, she rejects the suitors her parents present to her, instead deciding to marry Kofi Ako, a wealthy slave trader with whom she’s in love. But the marriage with Kofi Ako turns out not to be the heaven Anowa believed it would.
For one, Kofi Ako resents Anowa for fancying herself a modern independent woman and always asks her to behave like a ‘normal’ woman. For another, after years of marriage, Anowa has not been able to conceive. After an episode of intense argument between the couple, Kofi Ako reveals that he is the cause of their childlessness, as he cannot conceive. In Anowa, Aidoo explores the struggles that women face when they decide to live on their own terms.
marching for fausa
AUTHOR: ‘biyi bandele
GENRE: drama
In his 1993 Marching for Fausa, late Nigerian author and filmmaker, Biyi Bandele, introduces us to a fictional African country, the Federal Republic of Songhai, where Telani Balarabe, a young journalist, is on a mission to get to the roots of the disappearance of a group of schoolchildren who have been arrested by the State Security Service. In this play, Bandele explores the extent and impact of political corruption on a country.
barber shop chronicles
AUTHOR: inua ellams
GENRE: drama
Nigerian poet and playwright, Inua Ellams, takes us on a journey across countries and continents in the course of a single day. Set in Black barbershops in England, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana, the play highlights the relationship between barbers and their clients and the central role that barbershops play in the development of masculinity. The central characters are Samuel and Emmanuel, young Black men in London. The play is set on the third anniversary of Samuel’s father’s imprisonment, which coincides with the day of a major football match between Barcelona and Chelsea.
Barber Shop Chronicles also explores the connections between these countries, stressing the relationships between Africans, whether they are living on the continent or out of it.
Cassava Republic Press is proud to announce the launch of their inaugural $20,000 Global Black Women’s Non-Fiction Manuscript Prize dedicated to exceptional works by Black women. Deadline: 30th June 2024. Learn more here.
eclipsed
AUTHOR: danai gurira
GENRE: drama
Danai Gurira is best known for her work as an actress. But long before the 2018 role as Okoye in Black Panther, which catapulted her to global acclaim, in 2009, she wrote a play, Eclipsed, which was the first play to premiere on Broadway with an all-Black and female cast and crew.
First published in 2010, Eclipsed is set in 2003, in a one-room shack serving as a camp for the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), a rebel group operating in war-torn, Charles Taylor-led Liberia. It follows the lives of five women in their quest to survive their unfortunate fates. There are Helena and Bessie, two young women living as ‘wives’ of the Commanding Officer (C.O.) after he kidnapped them and forced himself on them several times. Together, Helena and Bessie help take care of The Girl, an intelligent 15-year-old girl who was also kidnapped and raped by the C.O. There is also Maima, a soldier who returns from war and tries to inspire The Girl to leave the C.O. and become a soldier. However, The Girl seems resigned to her fate with the C.O. Finally, Rita is a peace worker who makes multiple trips to the compound to negotiate an end to the conflict.
By exploring the troubled lives of these women, Eclipsed lives up to its description by Washington Post as a ‘vivacious portrait of helplessness, of the entirely human impulse to adapt, to get by even when there’s little hope life will get better.’
a raisin in the sun
Author: lorraine hansberry
Genre: drama
A Raisin in the Sun is American author Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 masterpiece about a Black family living in poverty in south Chicago.
Lena Younger (also known as Mama) lives in the same house with her daughter Beneatha, son Walter and his wife and son, Ruth and Travis. When Mama’s husband dies, the family is given a $10,000 life insurance check. Walter, desperate for a better life, feels entitled to the money. He wants to invest it in establishing a liquor store together with his friends Willy and Bobo. When the family receives the money, Mama makes a down payment for a new house which is in an all-white neighbourhood and so is cheaper. She gives Walter the balance, a sum of $6,500, asking him to save $3,000 for Beneatha’s education and invest the rest. On receiving the money, however, Walter hands it all to Willy, who disappears with it.
Meanwhile, a white resident of the Younger’s new neighbourhood offers to buy them out, to prevent a Black family from moving into the neighbourhood. To everyone’s bitter surprise, Walter is ready to accept the offer.
no easter sunday for queers
AUTHOR: koleka putuma
GENRE: drama
In No Easter Sunday for Queers, South African poet and playwright, Koleka Putuma, brings the dead back to life in search of justice. Napo and Mimi were two queer women in love, now, they are ghosts bound by their eternal love. Every year at Easter Sunday, the anniversary of their wedding and death, they return to the church to demand that the Father take responsibility for their crucifixion.
In this book, Putuma explores the effect of violence on queer relationships, and makes a case for the validity and profundity of queer love by depicting a relationship that continues even after death.
the gods are not to blame
AUTHOR: ola rotimi
GENRE: drama
The Gods Are Not to Blame is a classic Nigerian play by veteran playwright, Ola Rotimi. First staged in 1968 and published in 1971, it is an adaptation of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex.
It follows the story of Odewale, born to King Adetusa of Kutuje and his wife Ojuola. At his birth, a diviner prophesies that the child is cursed to kill his father and marry his mother. To avoid this abomination, Adetusa orders that Odewale be killed. But unknown to all, the guard whose task it is to murder the child instead saves his life by living him in a bush far away from Kutuje.
Many years later, Odewale is now the king of Kutuje, after unknowingly killing its old king Adetusa. As with tradition, he has married the king’s old wife and had children with her, unwittingly fulfilling the prophecy and causing great chaos in Kutuje.