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Marc Maufort's impressive study, 'Labyrinth of Hybridities', puts critical works of contemporary African American, Asian American, Native American and Latino/a drama into productive conversation. Maufort insightfully argues that these works purposefully push against the limitations of conventional realism and indeed hybridize the form. This is one of the few scholarly works that examines multi-ethnic dramas comparatively. Consequently, this is a text that scholars and students of American drama and literature must read. (Harry J. Elam, Jr., Olive H. Palmer Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University) 'Labyrinth' is a thoroughly researched monograph with copious footnotes and perspicacious readings of well-known and lesser-known multi-ethnic American playwrights and their works. Maufort brings to light stylistic, thematic, and dialogic techniques pioneered by O'Neill and taken up by the playwrights included in the book. 'Labyrinth' is thorough, concise, and astute in its treatment of a cornucopia of contemporary plays while it investigates O'Neill's legacy in postmodern experimental theater. (Jeremy Ekberg, The Eugene O'Neill Review 33, 2012/2) In his Epilogue, Maufort elucidates the many similarities among the ethnic dramatists he is examining without flattening them into a single mold. His analysis makes us aware of the intensely vibrant and experimental theater scene that these playwrights were helping to create at the end of the last century and the dawn of the twenty-first. Maufort's book reminds us of the richness and complexity of the many cultures that make up the 'American.' And even while he shows us the frequent marginalization of ethnic work, he helps to embed that corpus more firmly in mainstream American drama. This is a volume that should be of great interest to anyone interested in Ethnic Studies, American Studies, and Theater Studies as well as literary scholars and comparatists. (Kathleen L. Komar, Recherche Litteraire/Literary Research 28, 2012)

Marc Maufort's impressive study, 'Labyrinth of Hybridities', puts critical works of contemporary African American, Asian American, Native American and Latino/a drama into productive conversation. Maufort insightfully argues that these works purposefully push against the limitations of conventional realism and indeed hybridize the form. This is one of the few scholarly works that examines multi-ethnic dramas comparatively. Consequently, this is a text that scholars and students of American drama and literature must read. (Harry J. Elam, Jr., Olive H. Palmer Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University)

Marc Maufort's impressive study, 'Labyrinth of Hybridities', puts critical works of contemporary African American, Asian American, Native American and Latino/a drama into productive conversation. Maufort insightfully argues that these works purposefully push against the limitations of conventional realism and indeed hybridize the form. This is one of the few scholarly works that examines multi-ethnic dramas comparatively. Consequently, this is a text that scholars and students of American drama and literature must read. (Harry J. Elam, Jr., Olive H. Palmer Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University) 'Labyrinth' is a thoroughly researched monograph with copious footnotes and perspicacious readings of well-known and lesser-known multi-ethnic American playwrights and their works. Maufort brings to light stylistic, thematic, and dialogic techniques pioneered by O'Neill and taken up by the playwrights included in the book. 'Labyrinth' is thorough, concise, and astute in its treatment of a cornucopia of contemporary plays while it investigates O'Neill's legacy in postmodern experimental theater. (Jeremy Ekberg, The Eugene O'Neill Review 33, 2012/2)

Author Information

Marc Maufort is a professor of English-language literatures and drama at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). He is the author of a monograph entitled Transgressive Itineraries: Postcolonial Hybridizations of Dramatic Realism (2003), a comparative study of the realist aesthetic in contemporary Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand theatre. He has also edited or co-edited several books on American and postcolonial drama, including Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Dawn of a New Millennium (2002), Performing Aotearoa: New Zealand Theatre and Drama in an Age of Transition (2007), and more recently, Signatures of the Past: Cultural Memory in Contemporary Anglophone North American Drama (2008).

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