Timberlake Wertenbaker is one of the most linguistically adept, thematically provocative, and biographically elusive playwrights of the contemporary Anglo-American theatre scene. Critical assessment of her plays and translations focuses on Wertenbaker’s great skill with language and deft interaction with historical, mythical, and literary sources, as well as on her thematic concern with the ability of art to transform life, the role of speech and silence in liberation and oppression, and the fluidity of sex and gender roles.

Wertenbaker’s body of work abounds with self-invented female characters that transcend strictures of class, gender, and nationality. Because of this, her plays consistently speak to the desire (as the

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First published 11 August 2004 ; revised 10 April 2006

Citation: Freeman, Sara. "Timberlake Wertenbaker". The Literary Encyclopedia. 11 August 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5520, accessed 9 February 2010.]