Featuring the work of six playwrights published in English for the first time, this anthology showcases the contemporary playwriting of Uruguay in all its depth, vibrancy and extraordinary range.

Uruguay's culture has flourished over recent years, and nowhere is that more evident in its playwrighting: contemporary artists are putting forward urgent, powerful, and prescient work that deserves to be seen.

Jimena Marquez's Basic Notions of Bridge-Building and Marianella Morena's I Won't Give Birth, I'll Give Verse both reflect on Uruguay's literary and political past. Through staging encounters with the works of two celebrated Uruguayan 20th-century writers, these plays ask how theatre artists and society at large can be reconciled with legacies of dictatorship and misogyny. Invoking the revered international figure of Anne Frank, Sandra Massera's Prelude to Anne questions whether the lives of others can be accounted for in our imaginations. Channeling heartbreak and disappointment, Josefina Trfas's Emotional Terrorism delves into the writing process itself, and its capacity to heal. Pushing the meaning of parental devotion when faced with the suffering of a child, Ana Versus Death sees Gabriel Calderon's eponymous protagonist embark on a dangerous mission to save her son's life. And, finally, Leonor Courtoisie sends childhood friends on an anarchic, sunbaked road trip to save another life-an endangered armadillo's - in They All Sleep at Siesta Time.

Through these six plays, as well as an introduction by academic Adam Versenyi, The Methuen Drama Book of Contemporary Uruguayan Plays not only disseminates the great work of Uruguayan playwrights, but also places it in dialogue with contemporary playwriting in the UK, creating a resource for students, practitioners, researchers, teachers and theatre-makers to expand their knowledge of this fantastic field of work.