As In Darfur prepares to begin performances next week, I wanted to provide a few resources for those audience members who want to read either before or after coming to see In Darfur. Those resources marked with an asterisk are highly recommended.
Documentaries
The following documentaries have been very useful to the cast and crew:
The Devil Came on Horseback *- Darfur Diaries
- Darfur Now
- Sand and Sorrow *
- PBS Frontline “On Our Watch,” which is available to watch online
Books
- The Devil Came on Horseback by Brian Steidle *
- Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide by Gerard Prunier
- Darfur: A New History of a Long War by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal
- Genocide in Darfur: Investigating the Atrocities in the Sudan
edited by Samuel Totten and Eric Markusen
News Articles
There are many news sources out there, but because the play features a New York Times reporter and playwright Winter Miller traveled with New York Times reporter Nicholas D. Kristof to the Sudan border, I’m providing several Times resources here. These are some of the articles the cast and crew found most useful for background on Darfur:
- Marc Lacey, “In Sudan, Militiamen on Horses Uproot a Million,” The New York Times,
May 4, 2004 - Nicholas D. Kristof, “A Policy of Rape, ” The New York Times,
June 5, 2005 - Nicholas D. Kristof, “Is It Ever Okay to Name Rape Victims?” The New York Times blog,
February 4, 2010
Also it has been important for all of us involved in this production to understand the current political context of Sudan. This week, many Southern Sudanese are voting on a referendum to secede from Sudan, a term of the original peace accord that ended a 21-year civil war in 2005. Most of the oil reserves of Sudan are in the south, making this referendum a source of interest worldwide. Many observers are cautiously optimistic that the vote will be fair and that violence will not be reignited because of the vote. However, Darfur, located in Western Sudan, remains a humanitarian crisis on a massive scale, with those who have been displaced from their homes dealing with continued disease, hunger and violence.
To learn more about the current political situation in southern Sudan you might want to check out “Southern Sudan Feels Freedom Close at Hand” by Jeffrey Gettleman in The New York Times on January 8, 2011.
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Maren Robinson is the dramaturg for In Darfur.