Stefania Guarracino – Kelilah: Story of an African Woman

Kelilah is a raw, poetic, and profoundly human theatrical monologue that gives voice to a Nigerian woman who survived female genital mutilation. Alone on stage, Kelilah tells her story: her childhood in a village, the education she received, the day everything changed, and the long journey towards awareness and freedom.

Through essential words full of meaning, the audience is led into a reality often silenced: that of female genital mutilation, a practice still widespread in many parts of the world today. The monologue unfolds through memories, silences, and fragments of life that come together in a courageous testimony. There is no room for rhetoric: there is only the truth of a woman who, with dignity and strength, tells her own story and evokes powerful images. Kelilah is a symbol of resistance, of rebirth, of a voice that has found the courage to speak up for others, for all those who still cannot.

Inspired by true stories, the text crosses the boundary between individual narration and collective denunciation, opening a passage of empathy and awareness. Kelilah is an act of love towards life and towards every woman’s right to choose her own destiny. An intimate and powerful theatrical experience that leaves no one indifferent and invites the audience to look, listen, reflect, and above all, not to forget. Kelilah is free, she has spoken out, she has rebelled against death. But she is not entirely free, she is an immense fragment of a fierce pain shared by millions of sisters. Her scream, like the trumpet of a mother elephant, calls for the help of all humanity.