Canoes (Not All Canoes Come Sailing Maya, Maryse and Efua in Nkrumah’s Ghana) by Femi Osofisan

Description

Nigeria’s Femi Osofisan (aka Okinba Launko) is currently emeritus professor of drama and theatre
at the university of Ibadan, Nigeria. A restless artist and multiple award winner, he wears many
caps—as activist playwright, poet, biographer, novelist, journalist, actor, director, song writer, editor,
etc. His plays have been performed in different countries all over the world and in 2016, Osofisan
became the first African ever to win the international Thalia Prize. This the third and most recent
play in Osofisan’s Africa and the Diaspora Series.

Although called Canoes, for short, its full title is actually, Not All Canoes Come Sailing Maya, Maryse and Efua in Nkrumah’s Ghana. It is essentially a re-enactment of a fictitious meeting between these three women—Maya Angelou, Maryse Condé, and Efua Sutherland –at Efua’s Drama Studio in Accra, on the day that Dr Danquah died. Sponsored by the Camargo Foundation in France, the play has so far been performed at the Playwrights Centre in Minneapolis, the NYU’s Tisch School, the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC, and at the National Theatre in Accra. It explores the potential role of women in the grand liberation of the African continent and the whole of the black world, especially after the male initiatives crumble.

ISBN: 978-1-943533-60-2 Ι Published 2023 Ι Pan-African University Press