Sierra Leonean feminist and Playwright Oumar Farouk Sesay has put on stage a spectacular play dubbed as the The Throne”.
Many Sierra Leoneans have entitled the screening of “The Throne” as the rejuvenation of theatre in Sierra Leone. The event which took place at the City Hall in Freetown attracted hundreds of viewers.
The Play eloquently captures the current struggles of our world and especially the marginalization of women. eloquently captured by the University of Sierra Leone Theatre Group.
Chozen Generation Sierra Leone’s very own Adama Benya starred in the drama as Princess Bura — a woman who is on a mission to acquire in-depth knowledge of her past. She notes that “one must take a deep look at where one tripped and not just where they fell”. “I therefore assume that before fathers and forefathers came into being, there must have been mothers and foremothers to give birth to fathers and forefathers.
For this reason, it is only proper that home-age is paid to foremothers as well or at least use a gender-neutral word like forebears. If we allow their spiritual marginalization in the ancestral space, what hope is there for us women?” she asked.
One of farouk’s popular poems that is currently part of the West African Senior Secondary School Literature Curriculum ” Songs of the Women of my land” also explores his concerns about the way his people have almost forgotten the great deeds of the departed women of the land”
Umar Farouk Sesay is a published poet, international writer and a playwright. He published his first volume of poems, Salute to the Remains of a Peasant in 2007 in America. His work has also been published in many anthologies of Sierra Leonean poets, including Lice in the Lion’s Mane, Songs That Pour the Heart and Kalashnikov in the Sun.
He was resident playwright of Bai Bureh Theatre in the ’80s and some of his renowned titles include Tragedy of a Nation and The Great Rape. Within the period of 2009 to 2015, he was Visiting Fellow at the Centre for West African Studies in the University of Birmingham and Baptist University, Hong Kong.
In 2011, he was appointed by the former president of Sierra Leone as the Board Chairman of the National Youth Commission and he served in this position for seven years.
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