French-speaking African drama owed much of its growth in the colonial era to French initiative and support. From 1933 to the late 40s, French-speaking African drama was virtually synonymous with the end-of-year theatrical presentations at the William Ponty School in Gorée, Senegal. Not only did the French colonial administration encourage the students to tour the capitals of French West African colonies with their plays during the holidays but it also sponsored a William Ponty School troupe to the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937, where it performed Sokamé and Les prétendants rivaux.

As late as 1962 Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper made the following remark at Oxford about African history:

Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at the present time there is none; there is only the history of the Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness… and darkness is not the subject of history.

At the end of this essay is a list of the black French plays first published in book form between 1980 and May 1983. In all there are 43 plays in 31 books, not counting mimeographed and journal items, nor performed plays that have not yet been printed. The rate of book publication continues high. I commented on most of the 1980 and 1981 plays in ‘Black French Theatre: The Latest Plays’ and ‘Black French Theatre Update’ so in a first section I shall present those missed from that period as well as the ones of 1982 and 1983. This will be done alphabetically by author except that Diouf is postponed until Sall, the two having written on the same subject.

‘Francophonie’ arrived relatively recently in Africa; it has only been systematically nurtured since the colonial occupation. The French have often even believed that the French language was ‘the best solution’ for Africa. Was there not, after all, only one culture, the French culture? And therefore it must, as far as possible, be spread throughout the world. A commission set up to formulate France's aid policy to developing countries confirmed the necessity ever to extend the influence of the French language as follows:

La France désire, plus que toute autre nation, diffuser au loin sa langue et sa culture. Son besoin de rayonnement intellectuel trouve bon emploi auprès de peuples dont la langue convient mal aux idées et aux techniques modernes (…): elle leur apporte un mode d'expression et une méthode de pensée.

Since 1970, the young generation of dramatists in the Ivory Coast has questioned the approach to the theatre represented by the tradition of the Ecole William Ponty and even by the new writing of Bernard Dadié, with his Monsieur Thôgô-gnini and, especially, Béatrice du Congo. Following Aimé Césaire's example, Dadié began writing political plays after 1966, but did, at the same time, incorporate some features of the traditional theatre. The founders of La Griotique, discussed below, thought these reforms too timid and were determined to break completely with the old style. This was the starting point for the new trends we shall be examining in this article.