The Collected Plays: James Ene Henshaw

Name: The Collected Plays: James Ene Henshaw
SKU: 100838
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₦15,000.00

The Collected Plays of James Ene Henshaw contains all the major published plays by this pioneer of African drama, including the highly popular This Is Our Chance. Written in the mid-1950s-early 1960s, these plays are among the most important African plays written in the English language and thus become classics on the African cultural landscape. Henshaw’s plays capture the pulse and moments of African society. They speak of the tug between tradition and modernity, of the declining morality of a newly independent society, of the failure of becoming, in political and ethical terms, among the evolving elite in the emerging societies. Henshaw remains the most popular, if not critical, playwright to have emerged from the African continent.

5 in stock

About the Author

James Ene Henshaw was born on August 29, 1924 in Calabar, Nigeria. He attended the missionary schools, Sacred Heart School, Calabar and Christ the King College, Onitsha before going on to read medicine at the National University of Ireland, Dublin and the University of Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom where he qualified a chest physician.

Back in Nigeria he went on to an illustrious career in medicine serving as Senior Consultant-in-charge, Tuberculosis Control, Eastern Nigeria (1955-68), and finally as Director of Medical Services in the former South Eastern State of Nigeria. He served in various professional and public service positions and earned several honours including Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) and Knight of the Order of St. Gregory (KSG) by his Holiness Pope Paul V1.

James Henshaw who in his words “strayed” into writing was a pioneer of African drama and the first to be published internationally in the English language. His plays capture the pulse and moments of his West African society.

One thing for which Henshaw should be remembered is the fact that his was the first attempt to be regarded as authentic African drama to be performed by African people. As the playwright himself recounted of This is Our Chance his first, seminal, play he had set out, consciously, to write plays “whose scenes take place in surroundings that are not far removed from Africa”. His plays, inexorably, capture the pulse and moments of his West African society.

This is Our Chance, which has undergone many reprints, has been extremely popular in West Africa since its first production by the Association of Students of African Descent in Dublin in 1948. It has been staged by professional companies as well as school and amateur groups. Along with other collections of plays: Medicine for Love; Children of the Goddess, Dinner for Promotion; Enough is Enough, A Song To Mary Charles; Henshaw remains the most popular, if not critical, playwright to have emerged so far from the African continent.

Henshaw died on 16th August 2007, while working on his last project, translating Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar into his native Efik language.