Ishmael Reed – The Plays (American Literature) - Softcover

Reed, Ishmael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564785513 ISBN 13: 9781564785510

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Ishmael Reed's career as one of our great playwrights has long been eclipsed by his other work. Collected here for the first time, Reed's plays follow the ancient tradition of using the theater as a forum in which the official versions of our history can be critiqued. Dealing with subjects that mainstream theatergoers might find disturbing―homelessness, the arbitrary entrapment of a black politician, the excesses of the radical feminist movement, the use of black conservatives to promote right-wing agendas, the exploitation of blacks and Africans as unsuspecting guinea pigs by the pharmaceutical industry, and the hypocrisy of the Christian church―Reed's plays are a pungent antidote to the watered-down world of contemporary pop-culture, where, Reed argues, minority voices remain as marginalized and stigmatized as they were a hundred years ago.

About this title

About the Author

Ishmael Reed is the author of over twenty-five books including Mumbo Jumbo, The Last Days of Louisiana Red, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down and Juice!. He is also a publisher, television producer, songwriter, radio and television commentator, lecturer, and has long been devoted to exploring an alternative black aesthetic: the trickster tradition, or Neo-Hoodooism as he calls it. Founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley for over thirty years, retiring in 2005. In 2003, he received the coveted Otto Award for political theater.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1564785513
• ISBN 13: 9781564785510
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 540