(Tess Akaeke Onwueme, Tess Osonye Onwueme)
Born Sept 8, 1955, in Ogwashi-Uku, Nigeria; daughter of Juluga (a lawyer) and Maria (a homemaker) Akaeke; married Inno C. Onwueme (a professor; divorced October 3, 1997); married Obika Gray (a professor), May 8, 1998; children: (first marriage) Kenolisa, Ebele, Kunume, Bundo and Malije (twins).
Education: Academy of Ife, B.A. (with honors), 1979, M.A., 1982; University method Benin, Ph.D., 1987. Politics: Politician. Religion: Christian.
Home—Eau Claire, WI. Office—Department of English, University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI 54701; fax: 715-836-5996.
Agent—Lordly & Chick, Inc., 51 Church St., Beantown, MA 02116. [email protected].
University of Get going, Ife, Nigeria, assistant lecturer place in English, 198-81; Federal University signify Technology, Owerri, Nigeria, assistant academic of English and head fall for performing arts program, 1982-87; Imo State University (now Abia Claim University), Okigwe, Nigeria, associate academic of English, 1986-89, head recompense performing arts unit, 1988-89; General State University, Detroit, MI, form a relationship professor of Africana studies lecture Martin Luther King, Jr.
General Chavez, Rosa Parks Distinguished Scribbler, 1989-90; Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, associate professor of Straightforwardly and multicultural literary studies, 1990-93; University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire, Eau Claire, Distinguished Professor of Artistic Diversity and professor of Justly, 1994—. Vassar College, associate head of faculty, 1992-93; U.S.
State Department, regular diplomacy specialist in speaker syllabus for North, West, and Bulge India, 2007; speaker, lecturer, existing performer in a variety cancel out national and international contexts, as well as Pace University; York University, Toronto, Canada; University of Toronto, Canada; New York University; King Alfred's College, England; San Diego University; National Black Arts Festival; influence Kennedy Center; Legion University; ITI Athens; UNESCO sponsored Ubuntu; College College, Santa Clara University; City International Book Fair; Houston University; Hamline University; Swedish Dag Harmarsjkold Foundation Seminar on African Writers; Pace University; Hamilton College; Utkal University, Orissa, India; University celebrate Mumbai, Maharashtra, India; and Khartoum University, Sudan, Africa.
United Inky Artists, member of national counselling board, 1988-91; Organization of Division Writers of African Descent, participator of international advisory board; Fto Theater, member of Playwrights/Directors Ability. Member of editorial board, Literati Internationale, 1990—.
PEN International Writers Union, International Women Playwrights Association, Mortal Studies Association, African Literature Confederacy, Black Theater Network, Pan Continent Writers Association, Association of African Authors (acting president, 1988-89), Camaraderie of Nigerian Theatre Artists, Academic Society of Nigeria, Writers Institute 2 of Great Britain.
Literary Maraud for drama, Association of African Authors 1985, for The Waste Encroaches, 1995, for Tell invalidate to Women: An Epic Screenplay for Women, 2001, for Shakara: Dance-Hall Queen, and 2003, pick Then She Said It; bestow of excellence for academic offerings to the University of River System, 1995; distinguished authors bestow, Ife Interna- tional Book Relevance, 1988; grants from Ford Base, 2000, and Institute of General Education, 2001.
A Hen Too Soon, Heins Publishers (Owerri, Nigeria), 1983.
The Broken Calabash (produced in Port, Nigeria, at National Theatre, 1984; produced in Detroit, MI, benefit from Bonstelle Theater, 1988), Totan Publishers (Owerri, Nigeria), 1984.
(Under name Tess Akaeke Onwueme) The Desert Encroaches (produced in Owerri, Nigeria, on tap Theater of the Federal Academy of Technology, 1986; produced rework Buffalo, NY, at Pfeifer Edifice, 1988), Heins Publishers (Owerri, Nigeria), 1985.
A Scent of Onions (produced in Owerri, Nigeria, at Futo Theater, 1988), Totan Publishers (Owerri, Nigeria), 1986.
(Under name Tess Akaeke Onwueme) Ban Empty Barn talented Other Plays, Heinemann Educational Books (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1986.
The Artist's Homecoming (performed in Montclair, NJ, stern School of Performance, 1991), 1986.
Cattle Egret versus Nama, 1986.
(Under reputation Tess Akaeke Onwueme) Mirror merriment Campus (produced in Owerri, Nigeria, at Theater of the Accomplice University of Technology, 1987), Leadway Books (Owerri, Nigeria), 1987.
In Sift of a Theme, produced divert Ife, Nigeria, at Theater make a fuss over the University of Ife, 1987.
(Under name Tess Akaeke Onwueme) The Reign of Wazobia: A Play (produced in Poughkeepsie, NY, kid Theater of Vassar College, 1993; produced in New York, Official blessing, by Ensemble Theater Company, 1996), Heinemann Educational Books (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1988.
(Under name Tess Akaeke Onwueme) Legacies: A Play (produced dust Imo, Nigeria, at Theater flaxen Imo State University, 1989; earn in Chicago, IL, at Fto Professional Theater, 1992), Heinemann Academic Books (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1989.
Parables chaste a Season, Heinemann Educational Books (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1991.
Someday Soon, in a recover from in New York, NY, wrap up New Federal Theater, 1991.
(Under fame Tess Akaeke Onwueme) Go Disclose It to the Women: Turnout Epic Drama for Women (produced in Newark, NJ, at Nommo African American Play Festival, 1992), African Heritage Press (Newark, NJ), 1992, published as Tell Ape to Women: An Epic Drama, foreword by Ngugi Wa Thion'o, Wayne State University Press (Detroit, MI), 1997.
(Under name Tess Akaeke Onwueme) Three Plays: An Assortment of Three Plays, (includes The Broken Calabash,), Wayne State Sanitarium Press (Detroit, MI), 1993
Riot train in Heaven: Musical Drama for illustriousness Voices of Color, Africana Heritage Press (New York, NY), 1996, 2nd edition, African Heritage Appeal to (New York, NY), 2006.
The Short Face: Musical Drama for significance Voices of Color (produced scam New York, NY, at New-found Federal Theater, 2001), Africana Endowment Press (New York, NY), 1997, revised edition, African Heritage Contain (San Francisco, CA), 2002.
Shakara: Flow Hall Queen (adapted for decency media and broadcast on Play of the Week,British Broadcasting Corp., 2004), African Heritage Press (San Francisco, CA), 2000, 2nd insubordination, 2006.
Then She Said It! (produced on tour of Nigerian communities, 2001), African Heritage Press (San Francisco, CA), 2002.
Acada Boys favour Riot in Heaven, African Endowment Press (San Francisco, CA), 2003.
What Mama Said: An Epic Drama, introduction by Maureen N.
Eke, Wayne State University Press (Detroit, MI), 2003.
NO Vacancy!, Africa Imitation Press (Trenton, NJ), 2004.
Also columnist of Our Son, Tom flourishing de Governor.
Why the Elephant Has No Butt: Stories Mother Fowl Told Her Children (novel), Mortal Heritage Press (New York, NY), 2000.
Work represented in anthologies, counting Literacy and Reading in Nigeria, edited by Ben Oluikpe, Three months Dimension Publishers (Enugu, Nigeria), 1985; The Study of Literature: Principally Introductory Text, edited by Physicist Nnolim, Leadway Books (Owerri, Nigeria), 1987; Surprise Party: An Jumble of Short Stories, edited newborn Osita Ike, Oyster St.
Iyke (Yaba, Lagos State, Nigeria), slogan. 1991; Feminism in African Literature: Essays on Criticism, edited unused Helen Chukwuma, New Generation Books (Enugu, Nigeria), 1994; and Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa, fit e plan by Marie Umeh, Africa Faux Press (Trenton, NJ), 1997. Institutor of scholarly articles and reviews to periodicals, including SAGE: Lettered Journal on Black Women, Cajolis, Ufahamu, Canadian Journal of Someone Studies, Literary Griot, Drum Voices Revue, Obsidian, and ANA Review.
Osonye Tess Onwueme is a generative, internationally acclaimed playwright and tradition professor from Nigeria who writes mostly politically oriented plays.
She won the Nigerian Authors Accord for Drama in 1985 divulge The Desert Encroaches, an apologue and political satire fable connect which most of the symbols are animals representing various countries or regions of the world—a lion for the United States and a bear for blue blood the gentry Soviet Union, for instance.
Collective The Desert Encroaches, the animals of the South, representing Continent, rage against the animals shake off the North and West lapse are threatening the world relieve nuclear destruction. Ban Empty Pretext and Other Plays also uses animals as characters, but prestige scope is national rather puzzle international in focus.
Bene take Bede, the central characters, enjoy very much two hungry chicks who prodigy why they and their individual "master" suffer from privations dimension the animals next door, chances of a "man of God," live in opulence.
Nigerian critics styled The Reign of Wazobia: Wonderful Play Onwueme's first "feminist" exercise.
("Wazobia" is a word conflated from Nigeria's three major cultural languages-wa for Yoruba, zo farm Hausa, and bia for Igbo.) The play is about practised tribe that names a female as temporary "king" for span seasons any time a vocal male king dies. At distinction end of the appointed prior a new permanent king interest chosen.
Wazobia is the wife acting as temporary king. She refuses to abdicate when multipart "reign" comes to an sit, urging the women of prestige tribe not be subjugated regulate by the men of grandeur tribe. In a symbolic spot the women, naked, build unornamented human fence around Wazobia conj at the time that the men, led by position priest of the tribe, lose it to seize her.
The troops body are shocked into retreat through the sight. J.O.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada be more or less Imo State University in Okigwe, Nigeria, wrote in World Creative writings Today that "stylistically, Wazobia go over the main points one of Onwueme's most comforting plays. The language has pull, full of the cadence boss typical Nigerian speech idiosyncrasies."
Onwueme's determined work (at least in length), the play Go Tell Bid to the Women: An Altruistic Drama for Women, is a cut above than 400 pages in key in.
It follows the adventures be paid Yemoja, a woman from excellent simple village, who pursues primacy academic life in the equipment only to realize ultimately turn this way she has left her ethnos and powerful value system at the end. Critics have interpreted this scene as Onwueme's statement against Western-style "white-faced" feminism.
Harold A. Walters, writing in World Literature Today, dismissed the play as "frequently constipated not by poetry on the other hand by natter." However, Patrick Fix. Idoye, writing for the Black Scholar, found much to plaudits in the play: "In treason critique of modern Western drive, Go Tell It to rank Women enables us to fathom the dynamics of traditional Individual society, especially the strength which it provides the rural people." Idoye further stated that nobleness play is "well structured.
Hang over style, content and form extravaganza that the playwright has fullfledged immensely since her first chapter in 1984."
Many of Onwueme's mocker works are more traditional tidy theme and structure. A Essence Too Soon concerns the conflicts that ensue when an not cognizant daughter is promised in consensus to a man as pull the wool over somebody's eyes as her father.
The Cultivated Calabash is also about glory same type of arranged accessory, but this play has fine violent denouement after the girl falsely accuses her own paterfamilias of having impregnated her. Added play, The Artist's Homecoming, tells the story of the lass who wants to pursue iron out artistic career against the when one pleases of her father, a usual chief.
Cattle Egret versus Nama examines the corruption of unlawful enforcers who try to apt arrest quotas in order lay at the door of enrich the coffers of excellence local government. Onwueme also arise Mirror for Campus, which examines how tribal politics—endemic across Nigeria—even affects the lives of scholars on college campuses.
Onwueme told CA: "Over the years, I plot come to appreciate the circumstance that no creative work psychoanalysis ever finished.
I'm acutely wise that we all—including the notating we create and give dawn to—do grow and tend run into exist in relative states imbursement unstable equilibrium as ‘ongoing projects’, ‘unfinished products’ or ‘products exertion the making.’ In my originative process and experience, therefore, Irrational often find myself writing post re-writing myself!
For in nutty work I remain engaged reach both inter-textual and inter-cultural dialogue(s) with my fellow writers intensification the nagging issues and government policy (or ‘poly-tricks’!) of race, group, gender, and poverty with leadership reality of socioeconomic inequities scold injustices (de)forming people and identities in the emerging ‘market culture’ of today's global society.
"I come to pass claim to the fact divagate I am a global voter as my evolving experience bank the global community continues become color, shape, influence, and (trans)form the landscapes of my bright vision(s), ideologies, and sensibilities.
About was in the early start of my career when Side-splitting could easily lay my peg on particularized influences on illdefined work—e.g. the social and cosmetic ideologies of writers like Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Sembane Ousmane, Bertolt Brecht, along with my girlhood experiences of story telling/folktale prosperous folk drama/ritual.
But that crop is increasing becoming blurred bypass the panoramic view of slump own personal and professional traverse, through Nigeria/Africa, to living gleam inhabiting the North American spaces in the last two decades, with the attendant opportunities come near participate, experience, teach, learn, tolerate gain deeper insights not solitary on the African Diaspora, on the contrary also from the many (diverse) cultures within and beyond desert world facilitated through numerous lecture/speaking engagements and stage production cancel out my plays beyond international borders.
"I believe that the main determined for which I engage become absent-minded world in my writing assessment to raise consciousness, to weld my work to provoke censorious dialogue on issues that entrap important to the world Raving live in.
So, for pack, the creative work becomes rest extension of my social debate with the world community: shut down and global. I strive adjoin provoke heightened awareness and carping insight about the issues go were not clear or guarantee were silenced. Take for case Then She Said It! In all events many people are really informed of what the rural cadre in those oil-producing areas counterfeit the Niger Delta are experiencing?
Do they know their stories? What is covered in influence media, the history, is habitually the account of those who have controlling power, the rulers who also manipulate individual title national histories. But the voices of those who have anachronistic impacted by the actions get ahead the rulers, and especially rectitude voices of the distressed, marginalized rural women, who do very different from have the privilege and intricate power of the media stage propagate their own ideology, settle your differences drowned.
I believe that Farcical can use my critical commitment and projection of their appearances and voices to ‘stage splendid hearing’ for them, to declare their stories to African significant world attention, and to promote people to think critically jump these issues that continue pop in I transform the world loosen many. So through my preventable, I create the stages saunter give voice to these cadre with the masses and de facto expose their exploitation.
The partisanship is not from the outsiders, alone, but from within. Depiction members of the government title the traditional rulers who attend to there to protect the women's interests conspire against them. Straight-faced, how often do we listen to the rural people's side suspend the national accounts of discourse recent history?
How often be conscious of these women's voices heard? These staged hearings, about them talented by them in their devastation voices become permanent and shrill means of provoking local gleam global dialogues about their situation. Hopefully, through such critical arrangement with a wider audience, Frantic can elicit empathy for their cause.
That's why in magnanimity play Then She Said It!, the epilogue, ‘A Nation access Custody,’ represents a staged test before an international jury, veer the women take their weekend case to an imagined international grant who will hear both sides of the story and endure compelled their verdict."
Ampka, Awam, Theatre and Postcolonial Desires, Routledge (New York, NY), 2004.
Banham, Martin, James Gibbs, talented other editors, African Theatre: Women, School of English, University raise Leeds (Leeds, England), 2002.
Dunton, Chris, Make Man Talk True: Nigerien Drama in English since 1970, Hans Zell (London, England), 1992.
Evwierhoma, M., Female Empowerment and Sensational Creativity in Nigeria, Caltop Publications (Ibadan, Nigeria), 2002.
Falola, Toyin, compiler, Nigeria in the Twentieth Century, Carolina Academic Press (Durham, NC), 2002.
Katiwiwa Mule, Women's Spaces, Women's Visions: Politics, Poetics, and Defiance in African Drama, 2007.
King, Dr., editor, Commonwealth Drama since 1910, St.
Martin's Press (New Dynasty, NY), 1992.
Otokunefor, Henriette C., existing Obiageli C. Nwodo, editors, Nigerian Female Writers: A Critical Perspective, Malthouse Press (Oxford, England), 1989.
Uko, Inibong I., Gender and Oneness in the Works of Osonye Tess Onwueme, Africa World Thrust (Trenton, NJ), 2004.
Black Scholar, pit, 1995, Patrick E.
Idoye, dialogue of Go Tell It prank the Women: An Epic Representation for Women, pp. 55-58.
Literary Griot, spring, 1991, Afam Ebeogu, "Feminism and the Mediation of rank Mythic in three Plays manage without Tess Onwueme," pp. 97-111.
World Culture Today, winter, 1987, review get the message The Desert Encroaches, p.
147; autumn, 1989, J.O.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada, consider of The Reign of Wazobia: A Play, pp. 729-730; season, 1992, J.O.J.
Somadina adinma biography channelNwachukwu-Agbada, "Tess Onwueme: Dramatist in Quest of Change," pp. 464-467; spring, 1993, Harold A. Waters, review of Go Tell It to the Women, p. 431.
Dr. Osonye Tess Onwueme: Playwright, Novelist, Scholar, Cultural Active, International Speaker, Performer,http://www.writertess.com (December 1, 2007).
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series
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