Sutherland, Efua Theodora

▪ 1997

      Ghanaian playwright, poet, and children's author (b. June 27, 1924, Cape Coast, Gold Coast [now in Ghana]—d. Jan. 22, 1996), founded the Drama Studio in Accra (now the Writers' Workshop in the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana at Legon). She was one of Africa's best-known women writers. After teachers training in her native land, Sutherland studied at Homerton College, Cambridge, and at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. When she returned to Accra, she helped establish the literary magazine Okyeame and the Drama Studio, which began as a workshop for writers of children's literature. Her own best-known plays were produced in 1962, notably Edufa (published in 1967), based on Euripides's Alcestis, and Foriwa (1967), a play that stresses the importance of melding new ways with tradition. The Marriage of Anansewa: A Storytelling Drama (1975) was often considered Sutherland's most valuable work. Her writings for children included the pictorial essays Playtime in Africa (1960) and The Roadmakers (1961) and the plays Vulture! Vulture! and Tahinta (both 1968). One of her later plays, Nyamekye, a version of Alice in Wonderland, shows the influence of the folk-opera tradition. Sutherland's book of fairy tales and folklore of Ghana, The Voice in the Forest, was published in 1983.

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