A History of Theatre in Africa

This book aims to offer a broad history of theatre in Africa. According to the author, the roots of African theatre are ancient and complex and lie in areas of community festival, seasonal rhythm, and religious ritual, as well as in the work of popular entertainers and storytellers.

The book states that, Since the 1950s, in a movement that has paralleled the political emancipation of so much of the continent, has also grown a theatre that comments back from the colonised world to the world of the colonists and explores its own cultural, political and linguistic identity. This publication offers a comprehensive, yet accessible, account of this long and varied chronicle, written by a team of scholars in the field.

Chapters include:

• an examination of the concepts of 'history' and 'theatre';
• North Africa;
• Francophone theatre;
• Anglophone West Africa; East Africa;
• Southern Africa;
• Lusophone African theatre;
• Mauritius and Reunion; and
• the African diaspora.