Joe de Graft
Joe de Graft | |
---|---|
Born | Joseph Coleman de Graft 2 April 1924 University College of the Gold Coast |
Occupation(s) | Writer, playwright and dramatist |
Known for | First director of the Ghana Drama Studio |
Joseph Coleman de Graft (2 April 1924 – 1 November 1978) was a prominent Ghanaian writer, playwright and dramatist, who was appointed the first director of the Ghana Drama Studio in 1962. He produced and directed plays for radio, stage and television, as well as acting, and was also a poet and educator.[1][2]
Biography
De Graft was born in
In 1955 de Graft returned to Mfantsipim School, where he taught English and was in charge of the
In 1960, de Graft was awarded a grant that enabled him to spend time in the United Kingdom and the United States observing amateur, professional, and university drama.
Ghana Drama Studio
In 1961, Ghana's prime minister Kwame Nkrumah opened the Ghana Drama Studio, founded by Efua Sutherland[5] as part of a movement, the National Theatre Movement, to create artistic works relevant to Ghana and Ghanaians. Joe de Graft was seconded to become its first director. In 1961, his play Village Investment was produced at the Drama Studio. This was followed in 1962 by Visitor from the Past, a text that was revised and presented as Through a Glass Darkly some years later.[6] Of another play, Sons and Daughters (1963, a study of conflict between generations), he said: "I was trying to make young people aware that their lives were important and could be looked at in this way, that they had a right to examine life as they saw it from their own perspective."[7]
In 1969 de Graft was appointed by
1979 onwards
During the same year (1975), de Graft was commissioned by the World Council of Churches to write and direct a play for presentation at the African Challenge Plenary Session of the Fifth Assembly of the council. The result was Muntu, a broad treatment of African history from creation to the modern day. Muntu was published in 1977 and, like other de Graft texts, soon found its way on to secondary-school syllabuses.
Back in West Africa in 1978, as an associate professor in the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, de Graft directed Mambo, his adaptation of Macbeth. Set in a fictional African country that recalled both Idi Amin's Uganda and Ghana herself, the radical adaptation showed how creatively de Graft was able to use Shakespeare.
On 1 November 1978, Joe de Graft died at the age of 54, while lecturing in the University of Ghana.[8] His obituary in West Africa magazine stated that a younger generation of Ghana's writers "had learned to look up to him as a monumental figure, teacher and practitioner in one."[9]
Legacy
De Graft, a crater on Mercury, is named after him.[10]
The Joe De Graft Students Drama Festival was launched at Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, in February 2006, with the aim of "creating awareness among the youth in senior secondary schools on the importance of drama, as a tool for shaping their character".[8]
Bibliography
- Beneath the Jazz and Brass. Heinemann (African Writers Series166), 1975
- Muntu. Heinemann (African Writers Series 264), 1977.
- Sons and Daughters. London: Oxford University Press, 1979.
- Through A Film Darkly. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1975 | The Wilby Conspiracy | Wilby Xaba |
Further reading
- Collins, Stephen (2011), "Playwriting and postcolonialism: identifying the key factors in the development and diminution of playwriting in Ghana 1916–2007", MPhil(R) thesis, University of Glasgow.
- Arthur Kemoli and Helen Mwanzi, Notes on Joe de Graft's "Muntu", Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Books (E.A.), 1981.
References
- ^ Albert S. Gérard (ed.), European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, John Benjamins Publishing, 1986, p. 825.
- ^ Vincent O. Odamtten, "De Graft, Joseph Coleman", in Simon Gikandi (ed.), Encyclopedia of African Literature, Routledge, 2003, p. 191.
- ^ Arthur Kemoli & Helen Mwanzi, "The Life, Ideas, and Writings of Joe de Graft", Notes on Joe de Graft's "Muntu", Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Books (E.A.), 1981, p. 1.
- ^ "Joe de Graft, 1924–1978", Hans M. Zell, Carol Bundy, Virginia Coulon, A New Reader's Guide to African Literature, Heinemann Educational Books, 1983, p. 388.
- ^ Collins, Stephen (2011), "Playwriting and postcolonialism: identifying the key factors in the development and diminution of playwriting in Ghana 1916–2007", MPhil(R) thesis, p. 7, University of Glasgow.
- ^ Collins (2011), "Playwriting and postcolonialism", p. 41.
- ^ Bernth Lindfors, "Interview with Joe de Graft", World Literature Written in English, vol. 8, no. 2, 1979, pp. 319–320.
- ^ a b "Joe De Graft Students Drama Festival launched", Modern Ghana, 26 February 2006.
- ^ Obituary in West Africa, 1 January 1979.
- ^ Anne Minard, "Mercury's Craters Get Artsy New Names", Universe Today, 15 July 2009. retrieved 16 September 2013.