4 Books Published by Aurora Metro Publications on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Encounters with James Baldwin celebrates the centenary of the African American writer’s birth. Over 30 contributors reveal the influence of Baldwin’s thought, speech, and writing on their personal journeys and their awareness of the need for social justice in this moving anthology.

Encounters with James Baldwin is a wide-ranging volume of short essays, reflections, interviews, and poetry. It brings together around 30 contributors who reveal the profound influence of Baldwin’s thought, speech, and writing on their personal journeys and their understanding of social justice. The anthology demonstrates Baldwin’s enduring legacy as a writer and activist who spoke truth to power during the fight for Black civil liberties in the US and beyond.

List of Contributors: Lord Victor Adebowale, chair NHS Federation, Fred D’Aguiar, poet and novelist, Nzingha Assata, founding member Afrikan Cooperative Union, Alan Bell, publisher BLK magazine, Zita Holbourne, activist and performance poet, Paterson Joseph, actor and writer, Tony Medina, poet and writer, BV Mullen, professor at Purdue University, Ray Shell, actor and writer, Tade Thompson, science fiction writer and artist, Tony Warner, writer, diversity consultant and founder of Black History Walks, Michelle Yaa Asantewa, author and educational consultant.

With a foreword by Stella Dadzie

Illustrations by Aleea Rae

With poems by Kadija Sesay

In this anthology about Black women’s hair and beauty, some of the world’s most inspiring Black women share their attitudes and struggles with their crowning glory. Kinky, wavy, straight, or curly, this book celebrates Black women’s natural beauty, however they choose to style their hair.

With an overview of the politics and history of Black women’s hair, the book explores how Black hairstyles have played a part in the fight for social justice and the promotion of Black culture. It challenges outdated notions of beauty, gender, and sexuality for young women and girls everywhere.

The power is in our hair. And we’ve come to tell the world what ours can do!

This anthology also includes over 30 interviews with women of color about their hair and beauty journeys, including:

• Annika Allen – co-founder Black Magic Awards and podcaster, UK
• Eva Anek – design and fashion, UK
• Anita Asante – fashion and design, USA
• Caroline Blackburn – former athlete and sports injury therapist, UK
• Doreene Blackstock – actor, UK
• Dawn Butler – Member of Parliament, UK
• Anastasia Chikezie – award-winning Afro hair entrepreneur, UK
• Stella Dadzie – writer and activist, UK
• Sokari Douglas Camp – artist, Nigeria/UK
• Stephanie Douglas Oly – retired Olympian sprinter, UK
• Deitra Farr – blues, soul, and gospel singer-songwriter, USA
• Rachel Fleming Campbell – litigation attorney, USA
• Ruthie Foster – singer-songwriter of blues and folk music, USA
• Kadija George Sesay – writer and curator, UK/Sierra Leone
• Jamelia – singer-songwriter, broadcaster, and author, UK
• Judith Jacob – actor, radio presenter, and fitness instructor, UK
• Bakita Kasadha – health writer and poet, UK
• Angie Le Mar – comedian, presenter, and producer, UK
• Francine Mukwaya – human rights campaigner, Democratic Republic of Congo/UK
• Jessica Okoro – IT program manager and STEM advocate, UK
• Anita Okunde – climate activist and member of Youth Parliament, UK
• Stella Oni – writer, UK/Nigeria
• Chi Onwurah – Member of Parliament, UK
• Olusola Oyeleye – award-winning writer, director, and producer, UK
• Shade Pratt – footballer and designer, USA
• Rianna Raymond-Williams – sexual health advisor and social entrepreneur, UK
• Djamila Ribeiro – feminist philosopher, Brazil
• Vivienne Rochester – actor, UK
• Cleo Sylvestre – actor, singer, writer, UK
• Carryl Thomas – actor, UK
• Jael Umerah-Makelemi – illustrator and graphic designer, UK

A landmark collection of plays for stage, screen, and radio, Six Plays by Black and Asian Women Writers has become a seminal collection for libraries, drama schools, and educational institutions.

(Revised Edition, 2022)

Includes Playwrights: Rukhsana Ahmad, Maya Chowdhry, Trish Cooke, Winsome Pinnock, Meera Syal, Zindika

Essays and contributions by: Bernardine Evaristo, Valerie Small, Deirdre Osborne, Sita Ramamurthy, and Stella Oni

This new edition of Six Plays by Black and Asian Women Writers includes a revised introduction together with the original essays from the 1993 edition.

The collection features writers who have since gained national recognition with works produced for film, television, radio, and stage, working with some of the most distinguished actors, directors, and producers of African and Asian descent in Britain. When first published, this collection was an important milestone in British theatre, being the first book to offer diverse female role models both by the playwrights themselves and through the characters in their plays.

Since the original 1993 publication, Meera Syal has become an international name as an actor, writer, and producer, with credits including the popular West End musical, Bombay Dreams. Winsome Pinnock has written numerous plays, many staged at the National Theatre, and is now regarded as the ‘godmother of Black theatre’ in the UK. Maya Chowdhry has explored multimedia formats and co-edited Acts of Passion: Sexuality, Gender and Performance. Zindika has written for dance theatre and co-edited When Will I See You Again with Natalie Smith. Rukhsana Ahmad co-founded Kali Theatre and has published novels and plays, including Mistaken and Homing Birds. Trish Cooke has had a successful career as a children’s book author and TV presenter. Bernardine Evaristo, who contributed essays to this edition, won the Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other in 2019.

Moving from the margins to the theatrical mainstream has been slow for playwrights from ethnic minorities. More than twenty years since the first publication of this anthology, the case for a Black-owned and managed theatre in Britain is still being made, with funding yet to be secured.

Come to our Black History Month book signing event on 27th October – book on Eventbrite.

“The essence of theatre, according to Stuart Griffiths, lies not in the word so much as its ability to affect us, touch us so that we feel pleasure or pain, forcing us to identify with it by reflecting something significant to our life… Black theatre in Britain is surviving. Though few plays have made it to West End stages, productions on the fringe have had continuing success. These plays attract a predominantly Black audience and contain all the elements of the greatest drama: symbolism, language, conflict, rhythm. This is popular theatre at its best using every means necessary to awaken residues of oral traditions buried in the depths of the race memory.” —Valerie Small, The Importance Of Oral Tradition To Black Theatre (1993)

“The new writing initiatives of the late 20th century grew out of a need to haul white elitist (male-dominated) theatre into a multi-cultural world wherein the plays staged were more accurately reflective of surrounding society, demographically and culturally… Black drama exposes mainstream (predominantly white) theatre-goers to aspects of Black British cultural input that is as indigenous to contemporary British cultural identity as that provided by white playwrights.” —Deirdre Osborne, A Recent Look At Black Women Playwrights (2005)

Contents

• Introduction | Kadija George
• The Importance of Oral Tradition to Black Theatre | Valerie Small
• The Write Stuff | Sita Ramamurthy
• Black Women in Theatre | Bernardine Evaristo
• The Theatre of Black Women: Britain’s First Black Women’s Theatre Company | Bernardine Evaristo
• Interview with Yvonne Brewster | Stella Oni
• A Recent Look At Black Women Playwrights | Deirdre Osborne

The Plays

• A Hero’s Welcome by Winsome Pinnock – A tale of misplaced loyalty, longing for escape, and early love.
• Monsoon by Maya Chowdhry – A poetic account of a young woman’s sexual awakening.
• Leonora’s Dance by Zindika – Four women share the house of a ballet dancer, whose contact with the supernatural lays the ghosts of the past to rest.
• My Sister-Wife by Meera Syal – A taut thriller about two women who discover they are both married to the same man.
• Song for a Sanctuary by Rukhsana Ahmad – Explores the painful dilemma of an Asian woman forced to seek help from a women’s refuge.
• Running Dream by Trish Cooke – Tells the story of three generations of West Indian women with warmth and humor.

A ground-breaking collection of astonishing plays by women from countries geographically linked but politically divided.

Internationally renowned writers and dissident voices together in one volume. This striking collection has provided the impetus for an international conference on women playwrights at Tel Aviv University.