#StepTwo: Curators

„I am a playwright and tutor of playwriting and post-colonial performance. I am based in the UK but I love writing plays set in Nigeria that are written for a Nigerian audience. That means the language, content and conventions are devised primarily for an audience that possesses what drama scholar Susan Bennett terms a ‘horizon of expectations’, where the audience members possess contextual knowledge of a performance and its aesthetics.

In this case, the horizon of expectations is different from the normative, white, middle class, theatre-going, UK audience. I choose to write with a Nigerian audience in mind because I believe that universality comes from being specific. An audience member might not be conversant with the peculiarities of a setting’s political and cultural landscape but through dramatic action, character motivation and story arc, they can follow a character through a story to understand and identify with their actions.

What this does is refuse to adapt the script to the perspective (and preconceived notions) of a predominantly white audience. It rejects the imposition of their conventional thinking on the text. The performance of the text, combined with the response of black audience members, allows for a different form of engagement, it dispossesses the dominant audience of a knowledge described by Chinua Achebe as ‘I know My Africa’. It puts the power of interpretation in the hands of the marginalized audience.“

„I am a woman, a playwright, and an Afro-descendant. I live in France. Questions linked to the colonial, to domination relations, and to eco-feminism interest me. But most of all I like to tell stories.

Africa is such a vast and diverse continent that it is difficult to give an overview of all that it represents to me. I can however say that it is the land of my ancestors and that I need to return regularly to Senegal or Ivory Coast to recharge my batteries. And the few geographical areas I know in Africa have nothing to do with the image given by the media of the continent.“

To me, ‚Africa‘ means the future of humanity. That is why I decided to set up here in Africa and develop all my work. When I watch out to see how the world goes, I notice that most of the human values are being lost and forgotten because of a sort of permanent search for material  accumulation and self-power. Unfortunately, I see that Africa itself does not seem to be aware of its own qualities, Africa itself seems to be running after the other continents’ position without considering the price for it: the loss of its humanity.

That is why I feel myself and other artists to be useful in getting Africa to become conscious of some of its values throughout our artistic work.“

„I am a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. My debut novel ‚The Eternal Audience Of On‘ is forthcoming from Scout Press (S&S). I write for brainwavez.org, a writing collective based in South Africa. I am the editor-in-chief of Doek!, Namibia’s first literary magazine. My short stories have appeared in Litro Magazine, AFREADA, The Johannesburg Review of Books, The Amistad, The Kalahari Review, American Chordata, Doek!, Azure, Sultan’s Seal, Columbia Journal, and New Contrast. I have been longlisted for the 2020 Afritondo Short Story Prize and shortlisted for Best Original Fiction by Stack Magazines in 2019. More of my writing can be read on my website: remythequill.com

„I was born on 16 November 1975 in Omaruru in Namibia. I grew up in Namibia and studied German and French Literature and Language in Cape Town, Stuttgart, and Lyon. I write in English, German, and Afrikaans. I am known for my Namibian take on the short story and speculative fiction and reflections on multilingual writing. I live, love, work, and write in Windhoek, where I teach and am involved in various literary projects.

Africa is my home, my castle, my roots, my wings, my wounds, my healing, my blood, sweat, and tears, my quicksand and rock, my cradle and bed, my silence and voice, my happy place and the eye of my storm, … the list goes on.“

„Mon nom est Sami Tchak, pseudonyme de Sadamba TCHA-KOURA, je suis né au Togo en 1960. Après une licence de philo- sophie dans mon pays et une thèse de sociologie soutenue en 1993 à La Sorbonne-Paris V, je me consacre depuis quelques années à l’écriture. Parmi mes publications, citons „Place des Fêtes“ (2001; dt. „Scheiß Leben“, 2004) „Hermina“ (2003), „La fête des masques“ (2004), „Le paradis des Chiots“ (2006), „Filles de Mexico“ (2008), „Al Capone le Malien“ (2011), „La couleur de l’écrivain“ (2014), „Ainsi parlait mon père“ (2018), „Les fables du moineau“ (2020). Je vis en France depuis 1986.

L’Afrique, ce continent où se trouve mon pays, le Togo, est pour moi une évidence mais aussi le lieu de mes multiples ignorances. Évidence, parce que je suis un Africain, je suis issu de ce continent. Lieu de mes multiples ignorances parce qu’il s’agit d’un vaste continent avec 56 États et des centaines de peuples qui ont des cultures ne se ressemblant pas sur tous les points.

L’Afrique, c’est mon continent, mais c’est dans des livres, dont beaucoup écrits par des Occidentaux, que j’ai appris à la connaître un tout petit peu. Mes nombreux voyages dans au moins 20 pays africains m’ont aussi apporté un supplément d’impressions.

L’Afrique, c’est le continent d’où je viens, mais jusqu’à la fin de ma vie, elle sera pour moi une réalité que je connaîtrai seulement par fragments.

Ainsi, je ne dirai pas ‚Chez nous en Afrique‘. Même mon petit village est d’une grande complexité qu’il me faudrait toute une vie pour tenter de comprendre.“