A collection of innovative and wide ranging essays about the study of drama, theatre and performance in Africa. Topics include improvisational drama, popular video films and African performance in the diaspora. Contributors include Karin Barber, Isidore Okpewho, Ato Quayson, Wole Soyinka and Akin Adesokan. Index, bib, notes, vii, 274pp, USA. INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 0253217016

Surveys a wide range of entertainments (including masquerades, mimes and dances), particularly those that are most popular with everyday audiences. A useful volume for students of theatre and African drama. Illustrated with b/w images. Index, bib, notes, 278pp, LONDON. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS, 0852555334

Examines four specific performance forms in Africa and uses this to question the tendency to employ western frames of reference to analyse and appreciate theatrical performance: masquerade theatre in Eastern Nigeria; the trance and possession ritual theatre of the Hausa of Northern Nigeria; the musical and oral tradition of the Mandinka of Senegal; comedy and satire of the Bamana in Mali. 208pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

Testimony to the scope of African women's work as playwrights, musicians and actors from the Algerian diaspora to the new South Africa. B/w ill, notes, bib, in-dex, xiii, 178pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS 0852555962

This volume brings together a number of studies of theatre made and performed by young Africans to audiences across the continent. It shows a wide range of work, much of which depicts the crises that young people in Africa face as they enter the world of adult relationships and compromises. The contributions, by adults who are deeply involved with this theatre, recount the inspiration and enthusiasm that has led to the artistic achievement and powerful creativity of the work. Index, b/w photos, 272pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.

A collection of six plays from the past 25 years of African theatre: Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka; Woza Albert! by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema and Barney Simon; Anowa by Ama Ata Aidoo; The Chattering and the Song by Femi Osofisan; The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco by Andrew Whaley; The Other War by Alemseged Tesfai. Gloss, xxix, 382pp, UK. METHUEN PUBLISHING LTD, 0413723305

Includes essays on the representation of Africa on the European stage, and African plays dance and performances that validate history from an African perspective, an essay on anti-slave drama in England and a play by Paul Oyema Onovoh. B/w and colour plates, 216pp, GERMANY. BAYREUTH AFRICAN STUDIES. 3927510637

Introduction to post-colonial theatre in the Third World and subordinated cultures within America and Australia. Explores social, political and cultural meanings of dramatic performance. Detailed analysis is given to the work of Wole Soyinka and Athol Fugard in Africa, Derek Walcott in the West Indies, August Wilson in the USA, Jack Davis in Australia, and Badal Sicar and Girish Karnad in India. Includes a guide for further reading. Index, notes, xiv, 186pp, UK. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Includes eight well known plays from Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya (Fate of a Cockroach, Intelligence Powder, Sizwe Bansi is Dead, Death & the King's Horseman, Collision of Altars, The Di-lemma of a Ghost, I Will Marry When I Want, and Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels). This is followed by contribu-tions on individual authors and plays, as well as on African theatre generally. Bib, xii, 646pp, USA. W.W. NORTON & COMPANY LTD, 0393975290

An introductory history of oral performance from the African tradition through to black performance in the UK. Includes an accompanying CD of performance by twelve contemporary performance poets whose influences and style are well described. A selection of their work concludes each chapter. Bib, 231pp, UK. HANSIB PUBLISHING, 1870518640

A collection of 24 essays discussing a wide variety of issues in African performance including Igbo ritual and its role of myth and drama, the use of masks, the use of drama in cultural resistance texts, and comic opera in Ghana among many others. Notes, bib, index, xiv, 364pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE, 0415261988

A survey of African performance using the focal lens of AIDS performances to examine performance more generally on the African continent. South Africa and Mali are profiled and each chapter ends with review questions. Illustrated with maps, charts and b/w photographs. The accompanying CD features audio and video clips of material described. Index, refs, gloss, xxvii, 315pp, USA. CAROLINA ACADEMIC PRESS, 0890891257

Essays that examine drama and theatre in Africa from such pre-colonial aspects as Shona ritual drama and post-colonial aspects as female character in post-independence Zimbabwe. 155pp, notes, refs. SOUTH AFRICA. NEW AFRICA EDUCATION PUBLISHING, 1919876065

A detailed examination of the aesthetics and ethics of cultural transition through the study of Shakespeare's plays and their reception in non-British contexts. Index, xii, 467pp, USA. RED SEA PRESS, 0865435375

Contextualises theatre for development historically within the evolving range of development theories, strategies and practices, notably including the now widely accepted notion of participatory approaches to achieving social change. Illustrated with examples and case studies taken from experiences around the world, and from many different development sectors, including health, literacy, voter education and so on. 192pp, UK. ZED BOOKS.

Explores the themes of colonial encounters and postcolonial contests over identity, power and culture, through the prism of theatre. The author also examines the work of prominent Nigerian and British playwrights who came of age after the passing of the British Empire. BNS, 224pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE, 0415312876

Second Edition. Essays on theatre in Africa in all its variety. Considers popular theatre, music, social and political implications, masquerades, theatre in revolution, state control and TV. 224pp, GERMANY. BAYREUTH A S, 3927510734

Essays that explore the common properties of popular cultural performances, while highlighting important differences between media in West, East and Southern Africa. Essays focus particularly on two of the sharpest issues in debates over culture, the role of women and gendered inequalities and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 222pp, GERMANY. BAYREUTH.

Critique of how women's writing, presented in different languages and registers, constitutes an important interpretive space for the postcolonial condition of Africans in general, and African women in particular. Argues that critics have to become aware of the complex ways African literature, particularly women s literature, constitutes dissident and subversive responses to cultural impositions in the form of traditionalism (defined as the demands placed upon women to live by the edicts of traditional values even when such values have been emptied of their meaning), and colonial modernity. Index, bib, 322pp, USA . AFRICA WORLD PRESS.