1Ancient, Indigenous and Modern Plays from Africa and the Diaspora is the inaugural issue of a new series edited by Robert N. Sandberg, formerly Lecturer in Theatre and English at Princeton University and now retired. In 2025, the second volume – an anthology of Indian Theatre – was published under the editorship of Nandi Bhatia (Western University, Canada), entitled Classical and Modern Plays from India. The present collection, likely assembled primarily by Simon Gikandi, a leading specialist in African Literature (Princeton University), brings together nine plays that constitute a valuable resource for anyone interested in theatre from Africa. Access to dramatic texts from the continent remains limited, partly due to a comparatively small market for this genre, in comparison with the novel. In this respect, Bloomsbury makes a significant and much-appreciated contribution to the field of African theatre within the global book market – a market which is notably more developed in the UK than in France, reflecting broader disparities in the academic field.

2The selection includes a wide range of texts, from classical plays such as Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, or Sizwe Bansi Is Dead by the South African playwrights Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Shona, to plays by figures whose significance was primarily local and did not really extend beyond national borders, such as Ugandan playwright Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu. The volume also includes ancient and indigenous plays, namely an ancient Egyptian dramatic text and a Yoruba masquerade performance. However, the selection raises several concerns.

3First, the decision to combine plays by African playwrights with Caribbean authors such as Derek Walcott and Michael Gides is open to question. In their introduction, the editors argue that the Caribbean plays “explicitly reference Africa; and theatrical elements and themes in these plays reflect what is seen in the African plays” (1). On this basis, they suggest that these plays may “help us to think about what might be fundamental about African drama” (1). Given the limited scope of the volume – nine plays –, an exclusively African corpus might have served the objective more effectively. More interestingly, the reason given for integrating those plays reflects a concern about the definition of African drama that is legitimate (a novice reader might wonder what the specificities of African theatre are), but also conveys a quest for an African authenticity that has long been debated in African Drama Studies. The broader debate surrounding theatre and theatricality – particularly the criteria that enable us to label a “traditional” performance theatre, given the Western origin of the word theatre (from the Greek theatron) itself – has been persistent. Wole Soyinka, for instance, addressed these questions in his essay, Myth, Literature and the African World (1976).

4Secondly, the inclusion of The Triumph of Horus, an ancient Egyptian drama reconstructed from hieroglyphs and visual records from the Temple of Edfu by British Egyptologist Herbert Walter Fairman, is anything but a neutral editorial choice. In a contemporary global postcolonial context – marked by renewed demands for the recognition of African History and Cultures, opening the collection with such a text extracted from ancient Egyptian inscriptions – even if it is a fully reconstructed script – reflects an obsession with origins and, ultimately, with the quest for authenticity. The association of ancient Egyptian drama with African theatre is problematic insofar as it may lend credence to the idea of an ancient, and thus supposedly prestigious, origin of sub-Saharan African cultures located in ancient Egypt – an idea defended by Afrocentrist thought in order to rehabilitate African cultures. Yet, Sub-Saharan Africa does not require recourse to such exogenous reference to prove its literary and artistic value.

5Finally, a major shortcoming of this volume lies in the lack of information about the selected texts. Each play is preceded by a brief introduction of the playwright or, in the case of The Triumph of Horus and the Yoruba Masquerade, a minimal account of the context in which the play was performed or, for The Triumph of Horus, reconstructed. Crucial details regarding original publication – publishers or dates –, are sometimes absent, and the language of composition is never specified. While it is evident that the Yoruba Masquerade was not originally performed in English, no information is provided regarding the status of the script – whether it precedes the performance or was transcribed afterwards and by whom – nor about the translation and the translator. The same deficiency is observed for the plays that were almost certainly written texts, such as that by the renowned Nigerian playwright and stage director Duro Ladipo. Although we are told his play Ọba kò so/The King Did Not Hang was published in 1964, the place of publication is not indicated. We also learn that”[a]n English version of the play was produced by Arthur Hall in Philadelphia in 1987” (50); yet, despite the editors’ inquiry into the “secrets of Ọba kò so’s appeal to international audiences far removed from the Yoruba language and culture” (50), no information is provided about the translation or its circulation over time. Everything appears as if English were the language par défaut, despite the fact that many of these playwrights wrote or staged works in other languages. This is not only true of pioneers of theatre in African languages such as Duro Ladipo, but also of figures better known for their work in English like Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu, who played an important role on the Ugandan stage, notably by serving as the chair of Ugandan National Theatre. The notice indicates that she wrote and directed many plays in English, but also that she directed a play in Luganda language (which actually won the Top Prize at the FESTAC in Lagos in 1977), without further elaboration.

6All these shortcomings, however, should not overshadow the main interest of this book, which lies in the editing gesture. (Re-)editing great historical plays such as Sizwe Bansi is dead, or translating Yoruba texts, is of great importance in a field where scholars too often lack access to the traces of a theatre that remains lively in the collective memory and is deeply inscribed in the cultural and literary history of African countries.