ABSTRACT
Amiri Baraka defies conventional expectations of an absurdist writer. His Afrocentric Blackness, reputation for polemical expressions, sincere explorations of varied religions, and commitment to Third World Marxism throughout the second half of his life contrast the popular image of a Eurocentric white male, apolitical and atheist, delighting in dismissing meaning-seeking as an objective in life. However, Baraka directly acknowledged inspiration by Beckett, famously had a play produced by an Edward Albee-led workshop, and directly responded to both Albee and Genet in his own dramas. Deliberately, he applied absurdist techniques like temporal looping and staged ridiculous situations and characterizations to illustrate the dichotomy between white and Black experiences of the United States. Additionally, Baraka joined a less often celebrated lineage of writers working in the Africana absurd and strove to create strength from unity across generations to the result that Black Sisyphus’s travails might feel less lonely and prove an antidote to futility.
