Eight years after leaving Canada behind, playwright Wajdi Mouawad is back with a shattering production
In 1518, Hassan Ibn Mohammed Al-Wazzan, a Moroccan ambassador, was captured at sea by Christian pirates. Soon after, the story goes, the pirates realized the value of their prisoner and delivered him to Pope Leo X. The pope was taken by Al- Wazzan’s intellect, and he made the diplomat an offer: convert, and he could have his freedom back. Al-Wazzan’s allegiance was to scholarship, not politics or religion, and he accepted. He lived out much of his life in Italy as Joannes Leo Africanus and wrote numerous popular books. By the seventeenth century, Al-Wazzan was considered one of the most authoritative scholars on Africa.
This obscure figure in diplomatic history has come back to life as a character in — and inspiration for — Tous des oiseaux, the latest play written and directed by Wajdi Mouawad. The Lebanese Canadian playwright is perhaps best known to general audiences as the creator of Incendies, his critically acclaimed play about two Montreal siblings and their journey to
the Middle East (it was later made into an Academy Award–nominated film by another top Québécois cultural export, Denis Villeneuve). But over the past three decades and across his body of more than twenty plays, Mouawad has emerged as a singular talent in the theatre world, a war afflicted existentialist who articulates an Arab interiority that’s rarely been seen on Western stages.
Esta historia es de la edición September 2019 de The Walrus.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición September 2019 de The Walrus.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Dream Machines - The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
Some of the world's largest companies, including Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet, are throwing their full weight behind AI. On top of the billions spent by big tech, funding for AI startups hit nearly $50 billion (US) in 2023.
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
MY CHILDREN are grown, with their own partners, their own lives.
The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours
New techniques reveal hidden details in the Dutch master’s paintings
Repeat after Me
TikTok and Instagram are helping to bring Indigenous languages back from the brink
Smokehouse
I WAS STANDING THERE at the corner, the corner where the smaller street intersects with the slightly wider one.
How Could They Just Lose Him?
The Huronia Regional Centre was supposed to be a safe home for people with disabilities. Then, amid suspicions of abuse at the facility, twenty-one-year-old Robin Windross vanished without a trace
Prairie Radical
How conspiracy theorists splintered a small town
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
Scott Moe rose quietly through the ranks. Now the Saskatchewan premier and his party are shaping policies with national consequences
The Accommodation Problem
Extensions. Extra exam time. Online everything. Addressing the complex needs of students is creating chaos on campus
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.