DescriptionThis is an African retelling of Euripides: an unnervingly topical story of a people and a beloved city destroyed by the brutality of war. The play was first performed in Lagos in 2003 under the distinguished director Chuck Mike and subsequently toured the UK.The author introduces his work:‘In 1821, the combined forces of the armies of two Yoruba kingdoms ransacked the city of Owu. Owu was a model city-state, one of the most prosperous and best organised of those times. The Allied Forces attacked it with the pretext of liberating the flourishing market…they slaughtered all the males and carried the females into slavery. Owu was never rebuilt…So it was quite logical that as I pondered over this adaptation of Euripides’ play in the season of the Iraqi war that the memories awakened in me should be those of the tragic Owu war…’About the AuthorFemi OsofisanFemi Osofisan is a prolific Nigerian critic, poet, novelist, and playwright whose work attacks political corruption and injustice, was born in Erunwon village in the old Western Region of Nigeria and educated at the universities of Ibadan, Dakar, and Paris; he is a professor of drama at the University of Ibadan. Among the literary awards and commendations he has won are prizes from the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) for both drama (1980) and poetry (1989) and in 2004 he was awarded the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), the highest academic prize in that country.
