War rages in the rainforests of the Congo. Government soldiers torment the miners and farmers who get in their way. Village women are raped, abducted, and killed.
In Lynn Nottage’s play “Ruined” several young Congolese women find refuge in Mama Nadi’s brothel and bar, where their work as singers and prostitutes is a relief compared to the horrors they have already suffered.
The print version of the play was published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc. in 2009 and contains photographs by Tony Gerber of the real African women who became the inspiration for the characters Sophie, Josephine, and Salima.
Appropriate for young adult readers age sixteen and up, this play demonstrates the tightrope these women walk daily as they balance their attentions between government soldiers at night and rebels during the day. Their lives are full of varying degrees of pain, and their fight is only to survive and avoid the worst of it, which is certainly inevitable.
The following video from Voice of America explains how the play demonstrates the atrocities of the ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo:
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