Understanding Lynn Nottage (Understanding Contemporary American Literature) - Softcover

Jennifer L. Hayes

Softcover

ISBN 10: 164336510X ISBN 13: 9781643365107

Publisher: The University of South Carolina Press, 2025

Synopsis

The first comprehensive study of the two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright

Lynn Nottage is one of the leading innovators in American theater today. In settings ranging from seventeenth-century France (Las Meninas) to twenty-first century conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Ruined) and at a Pennsylvania factory (Sweat), she creatively foregrounds explorations of race, gender, and class.

In Understanding Lynn Nottage, Jennifer L. Hayes presents an accessible overview of Nottage's body of work to date, connecting her to other Black female playwrights and situating her in the African American literary tradition. In this character-driven study, Hayes examines how the playwright's dynamic narratives bring together diverse perspectives to address historical and contemporary issues. Hayes argues that Nottage privileges Black women's voices within vital discourse about topics such as migration, domestic terrorism, and historical erasure.

This book lays essential groundwork for future study of Nottage, who will continue to be a central dramatic voice for years to come, examining social problems through complex portraits of communities struggling to balance their values with shifting societal norms.

About this title

About the Author

Jennifer L. Hayes is associate professor of literature at Tennessee State University. She is the author of Teaching African American Literature through Experiential Praxis: African American Writers in Europe.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of South Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 164336510X
• ISBN 13: 9781643365107
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128