<DIV><P><I>The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers</I> provides an essential anthology of six of the key plays that have shaped the trajectory of British black theatre from the late-1970s to the present day. In doing so it charts the journey from specialist black theatre companies to the mainstream, including West End success, while providing a cultural and racial barometer for Britain during the last forty years.</P><P>It opens with Mustapha Matura's 1979 play <I>Welcome Home Jacko </I>which in its depiction of a group of young unemployed West Indians was one of the first to explore issues of youth culture, identity and racial and cultural identification. Jackie Kay's <I>Chiaroscuro</I> examines debates about the politics of black, mixed race and lesbian identities in 1980s Britain, and from the 1990s Winsome Pinnock's <I>Talking in Tongues</I> engages with the politics of feminism to explore issues of black women's identity in Britain and Jamaica. From the first decade of the twenty-first century the three plays include Roy Williams' seminal pub-drama <I>Sing Yer Hearts Out for the Lads</I>, exploring racism and identity against the backdrop of the World Cup; Kwame Kwei-Armah's National Theatre play of 2004, <I>Fix Up</I>, about black cultural history and progress in modern Britain, and finally Bola Agbage's terrific 2007 debut, <I>Gone Too Far!</I>, which examines questions of identity and tensions between Africans and Caribbeans living in Britain. </P><P>Edited by Lynnette Goddard, this important anthology provides an essential introduction to the last forty years of British black theatre.</P></DIV>