Speaking Our Selves: New Plays by African Women
Speaking Our Selves: New Plays by African Women
edited by Asiimwe Deborah Kawe and Robert H. Vorlicky
University of Michigan Press, 2025
ISBNs
Cloth: 978-0-472-07721-2
Paper: 978-0-472-05721-4
eISBN: 978-0-472-90483-9 (OA)
About the Book
Speaking Our Selves brings together eight remarkable plays by women writers from the under-represented African countries of Tanzania, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Mali, Burundi, Benin, and Sudan, plus a play by award-winning Ugandan playwright and volume coeditor Asiimwe Kawe. Four of the plays are translated into English from Kiswahili, French, or Kirundi and French, while most of the plays preserve African indigenous languages, including Runyankore, Lusoga, Mina, Fon, Bambara, Luganda, Kiswahili, and Kirundi. Although the plays are united in presenting women as central figures who own their voices, they also represent a rich diversity of story-telling. Each unique dramaturgy is rooted in African forms of story-telling that occasionally merge with recognizable Western forms to create hybrid, dramatic forms. These hybrid methods emphasize the striking ways in which African women writers continue to experiment with form, moving beyond Western-influenced dramaturgy if and when it jeopardizes their authentic ways of artistic expression and creation through language, movement, and music, centered in African Cosmology.
The plays within Speaking Our Selves confront a range of ideas and issues, including women embracing the potential of agency in often contested subject positions; confronting their historical object positions in worlds of devastating patriarchal authority; resisting toxic masculinity and persistent, oppressive binaries of gender roles; finding power in communities of women; increasing their acumen in financial, business, and economic spheres; facing tensions between traditional religious tenets and efforts toward secularization; living with perpetual acts of violence toward their bodies; and the rising mental health issues among girls and women across the continent. Readers and audiences are challenged by these plays not to be passive witnesses by observing from safe vantage points, but rather to be active participants in the stories being told.
The plays within Speaking Our Selves confront a range of ideas and issues, including women embracing the potential of agency in often contested subject positions; confronting their historical object positions in worlds of devastating patriarchal authority; resisting toxic masculinity and persistent, oppressive binaries of gender roles; finding power in communities of women; increasing their acumen in financial, business, and economic spheres; facing tensions between traditional religious tenets and efforts toward secularization; living with perpetual acts of violence toward their bodies; and the rising mental health issues among girls and women across the continent. Readers and audiences are challenged by these plays not to be passive witnesses by observing from safe vantage points, but rather to be active participants in the stories being told.
About the Author
Asiimwe Deborah Kawe is Producing Artistic Director for the Tebere Arts Foundation and Artistic Director of the Kampala International Theatre Festival.
Robert H. Vorlicky, recent Visiting Professor of Theatre, New York University Abu Dhabi; Director of Theatre Studies and the initial Director of Drama’s Honors Program, NYU New York.
Robert H. Vorlicky, recent Visiting Professor of Theatre, New York University Abu Dhabi; Director of Theatre Studies and the initial Director of Drama’s Honors Program, NYU New York.
Reviews
“This collection offers access to an extraordinary and diverse selection of plays, addressing a critical gap in the literature. The work is both timely and essential, as the editors have thoughtfully highlighted how the multilingual subjectivities in these plays transcend traditionally colonial languages such as Arabic, French, English, and Portuguese. Notably, the inclusion of a Kiswahili play deserves particular recognition, as it disrupts and challenges the historical language hierarchies frequently perpetuated in African literary anthologies.”— Frieda Ekotto, University of Michigan
“Speaking Our Selves is a compelling anthology of eight plays by women writers from underrepresented African countries, showcasing diverse storytelling deeply rooted in African traditions while transcending linguistic and time boundaries. Though some plays are presented in translation, they retain the richness of the authors’ linguistic and narrative mastery, challenging the long-held misconception of a scarcity of women playwrights in Africa. The editors skillfully confront themes of silence and gender subjugation, urging audiences to actively engage with these powerful, authentic voices.”— Jessica Atwooki Kaahwa, President, International Theatre Institute Worldwide
Tags
Theater, Women Authors, Africa, 21st century, Women, History & Criticism, Performing Arts
Open Access Information
Label: The Herbert A. and Bessie W. Kenyon Dramatic Library
License: CC BY-NC-ND
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