Inua Ellams’s Antigone is the drama of unjust law and righteous rebellion that we know from Sophocles’s Theban cycle … but refitted for our times. The story of Antigone’s lone stand against the state is updated to the here and now with a British Pakistani Muslim family at its heart, embattled in a nation roiling with Islamophobia and prejudiced policing.
Creon is the country’s first Muslim prime minister, making anti-terrorism laws that supersede international codes of conduct. It is this that denies Polyneices his burial rights after he is radicalised and dies in Syria.
