Playwright Lynn Nottage Wins Pulitzer Prize!

Congratulations to Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright Lynn Nottage!!

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Brooklyn Writer Lynn Nottage Wins Pulitzer

Joe Dziemianowica, The New York Daily News

Pulitzer pride grows in Brooklyn.

Lynn Nottage’s play “Ruined,” a haunting story of African women scarred by the brutal civil war in the Congo, has won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

“I’m orbiting the Earth,” said the delighted writer, who was at home in Boerum Hill when she learned Monday afternoon that she had won.

“I hope it will raise awareness about the issues that the play raises. The war ended in 2002, but the conflict and violence against women continues.”

The title of the play refers to a woman’s condition after she is raped and genitally mutilated.

Nottage, who had been considered the front-runner for the coveted prize, has often celebrated African-American New York women in her works, including a turn-of-the-century seamstress in “Intimate Apparel” and a riches-to-rags public relations executive in “Fabulation.”

“I went further afield with ‘Ruined,'” Nottage said. “I went in search of my African sisters. When I wrote it, I felt a greater sense of urgency simply because I feel the conflict is still raging, but interest is fading.”

Inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children,” Nottage’s drama is set in a Congolese brothel. It tells the story of the watering hole’s wily and charismatic proprietor, Mama Nadi, and several young women who work for her who have been brutalized in the conflict.

Despite the grim subject matter, Nottage’s play is filled with humor, music and hope. More . . .

Click on the articles below to read more about her:

= Playwright Lynn Nottage Wins Pulitzer Prize (Yahoo! News) 

= Lynn Nottage Always Points a Provocative Pen (Los Angeles Times)

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Picture Credit: The New York Daily News, Koester for News/Koester, Frank