Email This Event to a Friend
Remind Me of This Event
Thursday, July 2

7:00 pm
Amherst College Theater Complex, Webster Hall Studio 3
Suggested Donation: $5

Ngugi wa Thiong'o is known most often known as a novelist and essayist, but two of his plays, I Will Marry When I Want and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, had a deep impact in his home country of Kenya, and across the African continent. Both works (for which he was arrested, then exiled) recalled the Mau Mau revolution of the 1950s that freed Kenya from British colonial rule, and, like his novels, challenged the moral and political authority of the repressive post-independence, neo-colonial state. This project will engage artistic and academic explorations of the themes of Ngugi's work, including abuse of state power, post-colonial aspirations and disillusionment, and global neo-colonial economic systems. The project's driving questions are: How do we remember a revolutionary moment? How can we recognize and support revolutionary impulses and movements today? How do we "decolonize the mind" of the individual as well as the state? The project seeks to capture, explore, and honor the aesthetic, historical, literary, and transcultural importance of Ngugi's work, and its impact on African and international thought and artistic practice. Join New WORLD Theater and UMass Department of Theater faculty in the early stages of the creative process for this innovative and timely project, as we explore the themes, content, imagery and characters of his plays, novels and essays.