Literature and Theatre
See also: Guyanese literature in the United KingdomPopular Guyanese authors include Wilson Harris, Jan Carew, Denis Williams and E. R. Braithwaite. Braithwaite's memoir To Sir With Love details his experiences as a black high school teacher in the poor East End of London. An early Guyanese born author was Edgar Mittelholzer, who became more well known while living in Trinidad and England. His more well known works include Corentyne Thunder and a three novel set known as the Kaywana Trilogy, the latter focusing on one family through 350 years of Guyana's history.
Although the beginning of theatre in 19th century Georgetown was European, in the early 20th century a new African and Indian Guyanese middle-class theatre emerged. In the 1950s there was an explosion of an ethnically diverse and socially committed theatre. Despite an economic depression, there was a struggle to maintain theatre post-1980. Serious repertory theatre was highlighted by Carifesta and the Theatre Guild of Guyana. Wordsworth McAndrew has been prominent in Guyanese theatre since the 1960s.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Guyana
Famous quotes containing the words literature and/or theatre:
“Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers—such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a façade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)