I Am Yusuf And This Is My Brother, written by Amir Nizar Zuabi

I am Yusuf and This Is My Brother is a powerful, poetic exploration of history, memory and different forms of love.

'Before it happened I didn't know those people existed. Now I'm not certain that we do...'

January 1948. Palestine. The British Mandate is ending. The UN is voting on who will control what part of the land.

Ali is in love with Nada - but he is in despair. Her father won't let them marry because his brother Yusuf is 'odd' with his own eccentric, child-like point of view. Rufus, a soldier on the occupying British forces, longs for the cold fogs of Sheffield. War begins and, as the villagers are scattered and become refugees, the secret that's kept Ali and Nada apart is revealed.

Although set within a politically charged context, the play is full of haunting, dreamlike poetry rather than didactic polemicism. Instead of simply exploring the political debate, Zuabi concentrates more on the richness of language and culture. With a keen awareness of the vulnerability and fragile ephemerality of life, I am Yusuf and This Is My Brother explores humanity and love in the context of loss and death.

I am Yusuf and This Is My Brother is one of the most important and celebrated plays of Palestinian playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi. Amir, is well known around the world for his innovative work both as a playwright and director. In this play, he examines the life of three people whose lives are upturned by the Nakba of 1948. Poetic and haunting, this play is eerily more relevant than ever before, now.

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Amir Nizar Zuabi trained as an actor at the Nisan Nativ drama studio and is a founder of the ShiberHur Company. As a director, theatre work includes Alive from Palestine, When the World was Green (Young Vic); Stories Under Occupation (Al Kassaba, Ramallah); Voligo Andare In Prigone (Collosseo Theatre, Rome); Jidaria - Mahmoud Darwish (Palestinian National Theatre); Forget Herostratous; Tale of Autumn (Al Midan, Haifa); War or More, Sneeze and Other Shorts (ShiberHur); Samson and Delilah (Vlamsse Opera House). As a writer, work includes Clinging on Stone; Album; War or More; I am Yusuf and This Is My Brother.

Abhishek Majumdar is a playwright, essayist, scenographer, and director working in India and internationally. His work has been produced and commissioned in leading theatres of the world including Royal Court Theatre London, Prithvi Theatre Mumbai, Ranga Shankara Bangalore, Deutsch Shauspielhaus Hamburg, Ruhrfest Recklinghausen, Théâtre du Soleil Paris, National Theatre London, San Francisco Opera, PEN World Voices, Internacionale Dramaturgie Festival Buenos Aires, San Francisco Opera, and PlayCo New York amongst others.

He is a recipient of multiple awards including the META Award for Best Play and Best Script, International Theatre makers Award New York, The Shankar Nag Rangakarmi Award Bangalore, the Toto Funds the Arts Award, Segal Center Award for Civic Engagement in the Arts, B.V.Karanth Fellowship of Ninasam, Best Director in London Movie Awards, Best Director 8 and Half Film Festival (Rome) Awards, Best Scenographer Sofia International Film Festival amongst others. He works in Theatre, Film, and Opera in different languages and cultures. His book of essays, Theatre Across Borders is published by Bloomsbury International as part of the Theatremakers series and he has been published, performed, and translated in Hindi, English, French, German, Czech, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri, and Spanish. He is the Artistic Director of Nalanda Arts Studio Bangalore and creative producer at New Voices Arts Project based in Bangalore. His plays are published by Bloomsbury International.

Apart from theatre, he has published in the areas of mathematics, environmental economics, and chemistry.

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