Gerty Dambury

Born in Guadeloupe (French West Indies) in 1957, Gerty Dambury is currently living in France, in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil, where she is actively involved in theater writing and production.

Poet and playwright, actress and director, she is the author of 13 plays (6 have been recentlypublished at the Manguier Edition in Paris) and has also written a collection of poems and short stories. After studying English and Arabic at the University of Vincennes in Paris, she taught in Guadeloupe between 1980 and 1998, which se interrupted for two years to be  ‚"conseiller du livre " at the DRAC (Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles/Regional Council of Cultural Affairs), a position which allowed her to lead educational programs in poor neighborhoods of Guadeloupe. Thanks to writing residences in Limoges and in Avignon (Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon), she was able to devote her time to theatrical writing.

Her plays address historical, sociological and cultural issues related to the effects of slavery andcolonialism on contemporary Caribbean society, to the dislocation of social ties, and the difficulty of communication. Staged mostly in the Caribbean (Guadeloupe and Martinique), and more recently in France (Paris, Avignon), Gerty Dambury’s theater is getting an increasing interest and recognition among theater critics and spectators inside and outside of France.

Photo: © Anne Lescot, 2010