Abstract This article examines the influence of Third World internationalist politics in two dramatic texts, al-Miftāḥ by Yūsuf al-ʿĀnī (Iraq, 1968) and L'homme aux sandales de caoutchouc by Kateb Yacine (Algeria, 1970), paying particular attention to the form of the works and their explicit references to anti-imperialist struggles. The article argues that these references are incorporated into the structure of the drama in such a way as to incite in the audience conscious engagement with international liberation struggles, in the interest of producing Third World solidarity. The article also offers a reflection on reading twentieth-century political theater in the shadow of Bertolt Brecht, recognizing both his international influence and other possible ways of understanding literary history that his renown partially obscures.
Elizabeth Benninger (Sun,) studied this question.