The complicated identity negotiation of women in Kangni Alemdjrodo’s Chemin de Croix and Gustave Akakpo’s Catharsis

Third World feminists have long worked to bring to postcolonial studies a more nuanced reading of women’s lives in formerly colonized spaces. Postcolonial drama provides a fitting venue for such Third World feminists desiring to represent the realities of postcolonial African women. This article brings into conversation the post-colonial dramatists, the francophone playwrights, Kangni Alemdjrodo and Gustave Akapko, who have heretofore been unmentioned for their work as a catalyst for social change or as commentators on Third World feminism. Alemdjrodo and Akapko, both Togolese playwrights, are significant for their efforts to create space for debates over the complicated social expectations and identity negotiations of contemporary African women. In particular, Almedjrodo’s play Chemin de Croix (2005) and Akakpo’s play Catharsis (2006) deserve further analysis for their exploration through drama of the dilemmas many African women face when choosing between ‘traditional’ views of African femininity and western feminism as part of a personal struggle for autonomy and empowerment.