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Contemporary Plays by African Women: Niqabi Ninja; Not That Woman; I Want to Fly; Silent Voices; Unsettled; Mbuzeni; Bonganyi
This volume uniquely draws together seven contemporary plays by a selection of the finest African women writers and practitioners from across the continent, offering a rich and diverse portrait of identity, politics, culture, gender issues and society in contemporary Africa.
Niqabi Ninja by Sara Shaarawi (Egypt) is set in Cairo during the chaotic time of the Egyptian uprising.
Not That Woman by Tosin Jobi-Tume (Nigeria) addresses issues of violence against women in Nigeria and its attendant conspiracy of silence. The play advocates zero-tolerance for violence against women and urges women to bury shame and speak out rather than suffer in silence.
I Want To Fly by Thembelihle Moyo (Zimbabwe) tells the story of an African girl who wants to be a pilot. It looks at how patriarchal society shapes the thinking of men regarding lobola (bride price), how women endure abusive men and the role society at large plays in these issues.
Silent Voices by Adong Judith (Uganda) is a one-act play based on interviews with people involved in the LRA and the effects of the civil war in Uganda. It critiques this, and by implication, other truth commissions.
Unsettled by JC Niala (Kenya) deals with gender violence, land issues and relations of both black and white Kenyans living in, and returning to, the country.
Mbuzeni by Koleka Putuma (South Africa) is a story of four female orphans, aged eight to twelve, their sisterhood and their fixation with death and burials. It explores the unseen force that governs and dictates the laws that the villagers live by.
Bonganyi by Sophia Kwachuh Mempuh (Cameroon) depicts the effects of colonialism as told through the story of a slave a singer and dancer, who wants to win a competition to free her family.
Each play also includes a biography of the playwright, the writer's own artistic statement, a production history of the play and a critical contextualisation of the theatrical landscape from which each woman is writing.
Niqabi Ninja by Sara Shaarawi (Egypt) is set in Cairo during the chaotic time of the Egyptian uprising.
Not That Woman by Tosin Jobi-Tume (Nigeria) addresses issues of violence against women in Nigeria and its attendant conspiracy of silence. The play advocates zero-tolerance for violence against women and urges women to bury shame and speak out rather than suffer in silence.
I Want To Fly by Thembelihle Moyo (Zimbabwe) tells the story of an African girl who wants to be a pilot. It looks at how patriarchal society shapes the thinking of men regarding lobola (bride price), how women endure abusive men and the role society at large plays in these issues.
Silent Voices by Adong Judith (Uganda) is a one-act play based on interviews with people involved in the LRA and the effects of the civil war in Uganda. It critiques this, and by implication, other truth commissions.
Unsettled by JC Niala (Kenya) deals with gender violence, land issues and relations of both black and white Kenyans living in, and returning to, the country.
Mbuzeni by Koleka Putuma (South Africa) is a story of four female orphans, aged eight to twelve, their sisterhood and their fixation with death and burials. It explores the unseen force that governs and dictates the laws that the villagers live by.
Bonganyi by Sophia Kwachuh Mempuh (Cameroon) depicts the effects of colonialism as told through the story of a slave a singer and dancer, who wants to win a competition to free her family.
Each play also includes a biography of the playwright, the writer's own artistic statement, a production history of the play and a critical contextualisation of the theatrical landscape from which each woman is writing.
- GenresPlays
344 pages, Hardcover
First published January 24, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 14, 2019
"Contemporary Plays by African Women" - when I read this title I knew I needed this book. I got it right early this year when the book was published but it took me almost the entire year to read through all plays. (Which was not the fault of the book though.)
This book includes seven plays by writers from seven different countries (Egypt, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and South Africa). Each play is surfaced by information about the author but also the development and context of the play. I really enjoyed reading these before delving into the plays themselves. All of these plays are not only written by women but they also focus on women's experiences and life realities. The writers share this focus but they focus on different topics and themes and the tone and writing differ widely. This makes this a very powerful anthology. Of course, as with most anthologies, there are some plays I preferred over others but I was glad to have read all of them.
This book includes seven plays by writers from seven different countries (Egypt, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and South Africa). Each play is surfaced by information about the author but also the development and context of the play. I really enjoyed reading these before delving into the plays themselves. All of these plays are not only written by women but they also focus on women's experiences and life realities. The writers share this focus but they focus on different topics and themes and the tone and writing differ widely. This makes this a very powerful anthology. Of course, as with most anthologies, there are some plays I preferred over others but I was glad to have read all of them.
September 14, 2025
Sara Shaarawi's Niqabi Ninja: This play deals with experiences of sexual violence that pervade patriarchal societies, like Shaarawi's Egypt, the UK where she currently resides, and the US (where I am from). The play features Hana and the Niqabi Ninja, who are somewhat the same character and somewhat different--the Niqabi Ninja is a manifestation of Hana's rage and pain built up over a lifetime of sexual harassment and violence, but she's also a comic book character Hana is creating. In particular, one element of this play I find incredibly cool is the engagement with the myth of Isis reconstructing her husband Osiris' body to take revenge on Set for murdering him. Initially, Hana presents this myth, and it introduces themes of female pain and the generative energy needed for women (people in general, but in this context women specifically) to reconstruct a world that is balanced, safe, and open. And at the end, Shaarawi returns to this myth to separate the Niqabi Ninja from Isis. The Niqabi Ninja is not a goddess, and her power will not be turned towards recreating or protecting men--it will be turned towards punishing them for violence against women.
https://youtu.be/szgNMrAkbNo
Tosin Jobi-Tume's Not That Woman: This play explores a wide variety of physical, sexual, mental, and emotional abuse faced by women in Jobi-Tume's native Nigeria (or, more realistically, throughout much of the world), identifying both male perpetrators are women who enable this kind of violence as guilty, but also calling (female) audience members to action at the end by urging them to break patriarchal traditions by supporting other women, not teaching their daughters to accept abuse, and teaching their sons not to be abusive. The play centers around the Succour for Women Refuge (SWR), which is a women's shelter and resource center staffed by women who have themselves been victims of horrific abuse and physical/sexual violence, and whom the SWR and its leader Madam B have helped to escape that suffering. They are currently grieving the death of Madam B, supposedly murdered by her husband--a shock to everyone because Madam B had kept the abuse in her own marriage a careful secret, rationalizing it in precisely the same ways as the women the SWR attempts to help. Amidst their grieve, rage, and memories of how Madam B had individually helped the staffers, they try to convince Joyce (a woman who comes in seeking financial and medical help) to leave her abusive and cheating husband--but Joyce is reluctant to do so, until she overhears him talking on the phone with his secretary about his plan to kill Joyce and run off to another country with the secretary. The play is difficult to read because of the graphicness of much of the violence, but it does really important work in terms of encouraging resistance to physical, sexual, and psychological violence against women.
https://youtu.be/nZohO9a0c8k
Thembelihle Moyo's I Want to Fly: This Zimbabwean play comes from a period of rural depression in Moyo's country, during which time poverty was extremely bad and people resorted to mercenary (child) marriages, selling their children to white farmers, and other desperate means. Moyo's play deals directly with these issues, as Nqwayi--a poor man who abuses his wife and children, delights in cruelty, and spends money on expensive beer while his family goes hungry--first sells their last goat over the objections of his son, then sells his twelve-year old son to a white farmer where he will likely be sexually abused, and then sells his daughter Yinka as a second wife for his rich brother-in-law (and fellow abusive scumbag) Shumba. However, Yinka doesn't go down without a fight. She is determined to pursue her dreams of becoming a pilot--which she has the scientific intelligence for, and may qualify for a scholarship to the Air Force Pilot's College, according to her teacher.
https://youtu.be/ydM8icNsHpA
Adong Judith's Silent Voices: A very difficult play dealing with the ongoing aftermath of conflict in northern Uganda, and particularly with the problematic approach to the peace process (which seems to be fragmented and incomplete, as far as I can tell, not knowing much about Uganda and its recent history). Following the extreme traumas of widespread child abductions, the indoctrination of child-soldiers, extensive violence (including sexual violence) against civilians and enemy combatants, etc. the Ugandan government did not develop an effective approach to moving beyond the conflict and the violence it involved. And so much of this play revolves around the gap between official declarations of peace and forgiveness on the one hand and individuals who have been denied any justice for the atrocities committed against them. This is also a kind of dream play, moving fluidly between different scenes, different times, and having actors change character in real time, all of which adds to the psychological fragmentation created by the trauma experienced by these characters.
https://youtu.be/kwk3B2yvBHg
JC Niala's Unsettled: This play deals a lot with ambiguity around things like gender relations and violence, race relations, colonial nostalgia, crime and justice, social justice, etc. Set in a small town in contemporary Kenya, the largely aging white residents have difficulty accepting that the country is no longer the one they knew from the days of colonialism, and there is resistance to a project to provide affordable housing near John, one of the character's, farm. At the same time, John's wife--loved by the whole community--recently died, and while a Black Kenyan (or a group, though the play focuses on Tito, brother of Stephen, who works in the cafe where the play is set) has been arrested for her death, there is a widespread suspicion that John is actually responsible. Stephen tries to protect his brother, largely by keeping him temporarily in jail so that he won't be lynched, but this requires navigating a corrupt police/judicial system and trying to get Ciku (who was raised in this town, but since left for London and is now back trying to built the affordable housing) to withdraw her statement to the police about witnessing the murder.
https://youtu.be/n7cf5bE2EZU
Koleka Putuma's Mbuzeni: This is a strange but interesting play about a group of young orphans living alone in a house/hut/dwelling on the edge of a cemetery opposite the rest of the town. Putuma specifies that the girls are all young Black women, which helps act as a narrative corrective for the general prevalence of stereotypical depictions of Black South African women by white and/or male playwrights. The girls are obsessed with playing a funeral game, in which they perform burials, often with the youngest girl, Tinky, forced to take the role of the body. The squabbling among the girls combines disagreements about how the game should be played with insults about one another's lives and families, including the deaths/desertions of their parents.
https://youtu.be/im2153w2Wok
Sophia Mempuh Kwachuh's Bonganyi: This is a dance drama, which I don't really know much about--I'm not a dance person. The story is interesting though, in part because it's told from the perspective of a ghost, which is apparently an important aspect of Cameroonian folklore. Bonganyi is a young enslaved woman who hopes to win a dance contest before the local king so that he will grant her and her family freedom. And she seems to be an exceptional dancer, so it seems possible. However, several men plot against her. One man wants revenge because she broke a stalk of sugar cane on his father's plantation, then denied it and insulted him. Another wants revenge because his family brought extravagant marriage gifts, but Bonganyi still turned him down. And another wants revenge because he gave her a lot of presents hoping to marry her, but she abandoned him. However, they do not get to take their revenge, and (perhaps more importantly from the play's perspective) Bonganyi doesn't even get to try for her freedom in the dance competition because she is bitten by a snake and dies.
https://youtu.be/adGw94La-QA
https://youtu.be/szgNMrAkbNo
Tosin Jobi-Tume's Not That Woman: This play explores a wide variety of physical, sexual, mental, and emotional abuse faced by women in Jobi-Tume's native Nigeria (or, more realistically, throughout much of the world), identifying both male perpetrators are women who enable this kind of violence as guilty, but also calling (female) audience members to action at the end by urging them to break patriarchal traditions by supporting other women, not teaching their daughters to accept abuse, and teaching their sons not to be abusive. The play centers around the Succour for Women Refuge (SWR), which is a women's shelter and resource center staffed by women who have themselves been victims of horrific abuse and physical/sexual violence, and whom the SWR and its leader Madam B have helped to escape that suffering. They are currently grieving the death of Madam B, supposedly murdered by her husband--a shock to everyone because Madam B had kept the abuse in her own marriage a careful secret, rationalizing it in precisely the same ways as the women the SWR attempts to help. Amidst their grieve, rage, and memories of how Madam B had individually helped the staffers, they try to convince Joyce (a woman who comes in seeking financial and medical help) to leave her abusive and cheating husband--but Joyce is reluctant to do so, until she overhears him talking on the phone with his secretary about his plan to kill Joyce and run off to another country with the secretary. The play is difficult to read because of the graphicness of much of the violence, but it does really important work in terms of encouraging resistance to physical, sexual, and psychological violence against women.
https://youtu.be/nZohO9a0c8k
Thembelihle Moyo's I Want to Fly: This Zimbabwean play comes from a period of rural depression in Moyo's country, during which time poverty was extremely bad and people resorted to mercenary (child) marriages, selling their children to white farmers, and other desperate means. Moyo's play deals directly with these issues, as Nqwayi--a poor man who abuses his wife and children, delights in cruelty, and spends money on expensive beer while his family goes hungry--first sells their last goat over the objections of his son, then sells his twelve-year old son to a white farmer where he will likely be sexually abused, and then sells his daughter Yinka as a second wife for his rich brother-in-law (and fellow abusive scumbag) Shumba. However, Yinka doesn't go down without a fight. She is determined to pursue her dreams of becoming a pilot--which she has the scientific intelligence for, and may qualify for a scholarship to the Air Force Pilot's College, according to her teacher.
https://youtu.be/ydM8icNsHpA
Adong Judith's Silent Voices: A very difficult play dealing with the ongoing aftermath of conflict in northern Uganda, and particularly with the problematic approach to the peace process (which seems to be fragmented and incomplete, as far as I can tell, not knowing much about Uganda and its recent history). Following the extreme traumas of widespread child abductions, the indoctrination of child-soldiers, extensive violence (including sexual violence) against civilians and enemy combatants, etc. the Ugandan government did not develop an effective approach to moving beyond the conflict and the violence it involved. And so much of this play revolves around the gap between official declarations of peace and forgiveness on the one hand and individuals who have been denied any justice for the atrocities committed against them. This is also a kind of dream play, moving fluidly between different scenes, different times, and having actors change character in real time, all of which adds to the psychological fragmentation created by the trauma experienced by these characters.
https://youtu.be/kwk3B2yvBHg
JC Niala's Unsettled: This play deals a lot with ambiguity around things like gender relations and violence, race relations, colonial nostalgia, crime and justice, social justice, etc. Set in a small town in contemporary Kenya, the largely aging white residents have difficulty accepting that the country is no longer the one they knew from the days of colonialism, and there is resistance to a project to provide affordable housing near John, one of the character's, farm. At the same time, John's wife--loved by the whole community--recently died, and while a Black Kenyan (or a group, though the play focuses on Tito, brother of Stephen, who works in the cafe where the play is set) has been arrested for her death, there is a widespread suspicion that John is actually responsible. Stephen tries to protect his brother, largely by keeping him temporarily in jail so that he won't be lynched, but this requires navigating a corrupt police/judicial system and trying to get Ciku (who was raised in this town, but since left for London and is now back trying to built the affordable housing) to withdraw her statement to the police about witnessing the murder.
https://youtu.be/n7cf5bE2EZU
Koleka Putuma's Mbuzeni: This is a strange but interesting play about a group of young orphans living alone in a house/hut/dwelling on the edge of a cemetery opposite the rest of the town. Putuma specifies that the girls are all young Black women, which helps act as a narrative corrective for the general prevalence of stereotypical depictions of Black South African women by white and/or male playwrights. The girls are obsessed with playing a funeral game, in which they perform burials, often with the youngest girl, Tinky, forced to take the role of the body. The squabbling among the girls combines disagreements about how the game should be played with insults about one another's lives and families, including the deaths/desertions of their parents.
https://youtu.be/im2153w2Wok
Sophia Mempuh Kwachuh's Bonganyi: This is a dance drama, which I don't really know much about--I'm not a dance person. The story is interesting though, in part because it's told from the perspective of a ghost, which is apparently an important aspect of Cameroonian folklore. Bonganyi is a young enslaved woman who hopes to win a dance contest before the local king so that he will grant her and her family freedom. And she seems to be an exceptional dancer, so it seems possible. However, several men plot against her. One man wants revenge because she broke a stalk of sugar cane on his father's plantation, then denied it and insulted him. Another wants revenge because his family brought extravagant marriage gifts, but Bonganyi still turned him down. And another wants revenge because he gave her a lot of presents hoping to marry her, but she abandoned him. However, they do not get to take their revenge, and (perhaps more importantly from the play's perspective) Bonganyi doesn't even get to try for her freedom in the dance competition because she is bitten by a snake and dies.
https://youtu.be/adGw94La-QA
March 31, 2022
I only read Niqabi Ninja but that alone is not on Goodreads. Fast paced and very Impactful play!!!
November 20, 2025
Only read Niqabi Ninja - very good, clear play
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews