About the Contributors
Guest Editors
Nawal El Saadawi is a writer, a psychiatrist, and an author who is well known not only in Arab countries but all over the world. She has more than forty books to her credit. Her works have been translated into over thirty languages, and some of them are taught in universities and colleges worldwide. She has held numerous distinguished visiting professorships and has been awarded several national and international awards and literary prizes. On December 8, 2004, Dr. el Saadawi presented herself as a candidate for the presidential elections in Egypt..
A multilingual, widely traveled scholar and activist, Obioma Nnaemeka is Professor of French, Women's Studies, and African/African Diaspora Studies and a former Director of the Women's Studies Program at Indiana University, Indianapolis. Professor Nnaemeka is the founder and current President of the Association of African Women Scholars (AAWS) and List Administrator of an Internet discussion group on gender issues in Africa and the African Diaspora (AFWOSCHO). She is a member of the board of trustees of many international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and on the advisory board of several refereed scholarly journals. Professor Nnaemeka combines research and consultancy for the United Nations, foreign governments, international agencies, and academic institutions. She has convened the "Women in Africa and the African Diaspora" international conferences.
Contributors
Jude G. Akudinobi teaches cinema in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His essays on African cinema have appeared in Iris; The Black Scholar; Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art; Social Identities; Third Text; and Research in African Literatures, among other publications and anthologies. The founding film editor of the internationally refereed scholarly journal African Identities, Dr. Akudinobi has also served as the guest editor of a special issue entitled "African Cinema for [End Page 236] Social Identities." He is currently at work on two anthologies and a short documentary, Retracing Historical Signatures, which, through the works of the Zimbabwean artist Obed Muringani, challenges pervasive definitions of African cultural production.
Samar Attar is Visiting Scholar at Harvard University (2003–2006, also 1994–1995 and 1999–2000). She has published extensively in English and Arabic in the fields of literary criticism, translation, migration, gender studies, language teaching, and creative writing. Her books include The Intruder in Modern Drama (1981); A Journey at Night: Poems by Salah 'Abd al-Sabur (1970); Modern Arabic for Foreign Students, four volumes plus teacher's manual and seventeen cassettes (1988 and 1991); The Arab-European Encounter: An Advanced Course for Foreign Students (1998); Grammar in Context (1998); Lina: A Portrait of a Damascene Girl (1982 in Arabic and 1994 in English); and The House on Arnus Square (1988 in Arabic and 1988 in English). Her poems have appeared in anthologies in Canada, the United States, and England, including The Penguin Book of Women Poets (1978) and Women of the Fertile Crescent (1981). Her radio play Australia Day appeared in Australian Writing 1988.
Chukwuma Azuonye is Professor of African Literature and former Chair of the Africana Studies Department, University of Massachusetts, Boston. A specialist in African oral literature, his teaching and research interests encompass literature in African languages, African literary history, and postcolonial Anglophonic literature. In addition to creative writing and scholarly articles in journals across the world, his publications include Nsukka Harvest (edited, 1972); The Dogon Creation Story (1996); Edo (1996); The Hero in Igbo Life and Literature (coedited with Donatus Nwoga, 2002); Testaments of Thunder: Poems of War and Crisis (2002); Performance and Oral Literary Criticism (2005); The Silent Sky: Stories of War and Crisis (2005); Prisoner of Silence & Other Poems (2005); and Omenuko, an English translation of the classic Igbo novel by Pita Nwana (2005). He recently completed a critical edition of the complete poetry of Christopher Okigbo and is coeditor of The Columbia Anthology of African Literature (forthcoming).
Laura Chakravarty Box is Assistant Professor of Theater at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Her current research and teaching interests include theater history, theory and criticism, theatrical directing, global performance studies, and...
