| Synopsis: |
This insightful memoir takes us deep into Zambian university life and politics at the close of the 1960s, a time of great hopes for the new nation, when President Kenneth Kaunda himself took a keen interest in the teachings of his country's first university. The colonialist language of English is now - reluctantly - that of the state and the authors, who teach English here, John the head of the department, Michael a young drama lecturer have to grapple with the contradictions and dilemmas of teaching drama through English to Zambians with several different mother tongues. They begin to nurture home-grown drama and, to showcase it, the students create the beautiful Chikwakwa Theatre to generate new Zambian drama, the first of its kind in the country. From here they take the plays deep into the countryside, to the ordinary people of the townships and the remote rural areas.But as tension in white-ruled Rhodesia and South Africa mounts, and the students demonstrate against France's sale of arms to the apartheid regime, the Zambian government takes violent action, closing the university, expelling some students and deporting Michael and his fellow drama lecturer Andrew Horn for 'activities dangerous to the Republic'. Though this signals the ultimate demise of Chikwakwa Theatre, its legacy of popular drama continues to this day in Zambia and in the rights-based drama and Theatre for Development all over the world. |