Celebrating our African historical
personalities, discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich
culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
EFUA T
SUTHERLAND: AFRICA`S FEMALE PIONEER DRAMATIST, CULTURAL VISIONARY AND ACTIVIST
AND "BLACK AFRICA`S MOST FAMOUS WOMAN WRITER"
Dr Efua Theodora Sutherland (27 June 1924—2 January
1996) was a celebrated Ghanaian playwright, director, children's author, poet
and pioneer dramatist of international renown. She was also an teacher,
scholar, an unapologetic Pan-African cultural visionary and activist of ethnic
Fante extraction. Before 1965 when the First President of the Republic of Ghana,
Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the famous Pan-African leader called for the
documentation of “our folktales” as a way of creating “African Classics” for
posterity (Nketia’s Preface to Owusu-Sarpong (1998)), Efua T. Sutherland
emerged as one of the literary figures who identified the worth of “our
folktales” and indeed modified one into a play about seven years earlier. She
is the mother of well-known prolific writer, cultural activist and
academician, Esi Sutherland-Addy who is a professor at the Institute of African
Studies (University of Ghana) working in the Language Literature and Drama
Section.
Efua
Theodora Sutherland, celebrated Ghanaian playwright, director, children's
author, poet , Pan African cultural activist and pioneer dramatist of
international renown.
As one of the Africa`s early female writers, Efua Sutherland is internationally known literary works include Foriwa (1962), Edufa (1967), and The Marriage of Anansewa (1975). She has also published juvenile literature in the form of children’s rhythm plays such as Vulture, Vulture and Tahinta, which she has tried to use in her private grade school. Efua T Sutherland student was the legendary African writer, Professor Ama Ata Aidoo. In fact, when Ama Ata Aidoo studied drama at the University of Ghana in the early 1960s, her mentor was Sutherland.
