Books by Kia Corthron

Set in the Five Points neighbourhood of New York City in the years 1857-1863, when America''s attitudes towards people of colour and slavery shifted - painfully, transformationally - to the point where a war that began to restore the union becomes one that owes much to black fighting regiments, and common cause grows for the abolition of slavery. We experience the daily life of Five Points through the eyes of Theo, aged 7 at the start of the book and 13 at its close. Theo is half Black and half Irish, an orphan living between the homes of her Black and Irish grandparents. Through her eyes we see everything from P.T. Barnum''s circus to the Draft Riots that tore NYC asunder, and the daily maelstrom of work and camaraderie and hardship necessary just to survive in Five Points.

DramaCharacters: 3 males, 2 femalesA Cool Dip offers glimpses into the lives of Abebe, a young Ethopian man with a passion for the unlikely combination of Christianity and ecology, and the family that houses himduring his college studies in Maryland. Through their interactions, the play uncompromisingly tackles the issues of drought and social injustice,combining a realistic evocation of human emotion with the fantastical to bring attention to the scarcity of something we so o

"Breath, Boom" is a play that explores the life of a hardened New York gang member whose chief obsession is the creation of the perfect fireworks display. The author considers this marginal character's attitude to her own perilous existence.