Efua T. Sutherland
| Efua Sutherland | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Efua Theodora Morgue 27 June 1924 Cape Coast, Gold Coast |
| Died | 2 January 1996 (aged 71) Accra, Ghana |
| Nationality | Ghanaian |
| Occupation | Playwright-director, children's author, poet, broadcaster |
| Notable work |
Foriwa (1962) Edufa (1967) The Marriage of Anansewa (1975) |
Efua Theodora Sutherland (27 June 1924 – 2 January 1996) was a Ghanaian playwright, director, children's author, poet and dramatist. Her best-known works include Foriwa (1962), Edufa (1967), and The Marriage of Anansewa (1975). She founded the Ghana Drama Studio, the Ghana Society of Writers, the Ghana Experimental Theatre, and a community project called the Kodzidan (Story House). As the earliest Ghanaian playwright-director and a popular broadcaster, she was an influential figure in the establishment of modern Ghanaian theatre, and helped to establish the study of African performance traditions at university level. She was also a pioneering publisher, establishing the company Afram Publications in the 1970s.
She was an influential cultural advocate for children from the early 1950s until her death, and played a major role in developing educational curricula, literature, theatre and film for and about Ghanaian children.
She was born Efua Theodora Morgue in Cape Coast, Gold Coast (now Ghana), where she studied teaching at St Monica's School and Training College in Mampong. She then went to England to continue her education at Homerton College, Cambridge University — one of the first African women to study there — and at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Returning to Ghana in 1951, she taught first at Fijai Secondary School at Sekondi, then at St. Monica's School (1951–54), and also began writing for children. In 1954 she married Bill Sutherland, an African American and pan-Africanist who in 1953 had moved to Ghana (they would have three children: educationalist Esi Sutherland-Addy, architect Ralph Sutherland, and lawyer Amowi Sutherland Phillips) and she helped her husband in the establishment of a school in the Transvolta area.
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