Elmina's Kitchen: 60 Years of Modern Plays, Hardcover

You can't just walk into dis bad man t'ing, you gotta learn the whole science of it. You step into that arena and you better be able to dance wid death til it mek you dizzy.

Kwame Kwei-Armah's ground-breaking play about British black male identity and gang culture premiered at the National Theatre in 2003 to unanimous critical praise. It later transferred to the West End, making Kwei-Armah only the second black British playwright to have a play staged there and the winner of the Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award.

On Hackney's Murder Mile, Deli is trying to make a living as an honest man and revive the fortunes of his mother's West Indian takeaway. His 19-year-old son Ashley has different plans and longs to follow in the footsteps of family friend and local gangster Digger. As Deli finds himself and his business pulled further into the world he so desperately wants to leave behind questions of family and gang loyalty rise to the surface, leading to a shocking and conflicted conclusion.

Elmina's Kitchen is a thrilling, engaging portrait of a one-parent family struggling to stay within the law that takes readers behind the headlines and shows how easy it is to make the wrong choices when you're struggling to survive.

Elmina's Kitchen premiered at the National Theatre, London, in May 2003.

Methuen Drama's iconic Modern Plays series began in 1959 with the publication of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey and has grown over six decades to now include more than 1000 plays by some of the best writers from around the world. This new special edition hardback of Elmina's Kitchen was published to celebrate 60 years of Methuen Drama's Modern Plays in 2019, chosen by a public vote and features a brand new foreword by Paterson Joseph.

Kwame Kwei-Armah is British actor, playwright, director, singer and broadcaster. In 2018 he was made Artistic Director of the Young Vic Theatre, where he has directed Twelfth Night and Tree.

From 2011 to 2018 he was the Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage where his directing credits include: Jazz, Marley, One Night in Miami, Amadeus, and Dance of the Holy Ghosts.

As a playwright his credits include Tree (Manchester International Festival, Young Vic), One Love (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), Beneatha's Place (Baltimore Center Stage) Elmina's Kitchen, Fix Up, Statement of Regret (National Theatre) Let There Be Love and Seize the Day (Tricycle Theatre).

Kwame was an Associate Director of the Donmar Warehouse and has served on the boards of the National Theatre, Tricycle Theatre, and Theatre Communications Group. He is Chair of the 2019 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, was Chancellor of the University of the Arts London from 2010 to 2015, and in 2012 was awarded an OBE for Services to Drama.