Theatre
A Hen Too Soon
Tess Onwueme · 1983
Synopsis
A girl who has been sent to school learns that she is promised to a man of her father's age. Her parents see in it a quick fortune: a rich man's dowry is worth more than a diploma. She refuses, pleads, looks for support around her, and runs up against neighbours for whom an educated girl remains first of all a girl to be married off. She has to decide whether to obey or to break with her family.
Context
The text was written in 1978, during the closure of the University of Ifé caused by a conflict between the authorities and the teaching staff: its author had meant to use those weeks to write verse and found herself writing for the stage, which she had not planned. It took five years before a publisher in Owerri brought it out. It is her first work, and critics have noted the clumsiness of a beginner as much as the strength of the subject. She took up the motif of the imposed marriage the following year, in a better-constructed play.
Who it is for
A short play in English, with no French version, and hard to find outside Nigeria. It helps to know that the bride price was paid to the girl's family and could enrich poor relatives.
Prizes and reception
First work of an author who would become the most acclaimed Nigerian woman playwright of her generation, four times awarded by her country's authors' association.