The National Black Theatre Festival (NBTF) has become a fixture of the Winston-Salem, North Carolina community since its inception in 1989. At the 2007 NBTF International Colloquium presenters including Wole Soyinka, Kwame Dawes, Ed Bullins and over a dozen other scholars and writers shared works on the impact of August Wilson, on his plays, and on the state of African and African American theatre. Conference coordinator, Olasope O. Oyelaran, has gathered these essays in this volume, Gem of the Ocean: August Wilson in the Black Diaspora, which pays tribute to both August Wilson and NBTF founder Larry Leon Hamlin. With this collection, Oyelaran adds to the already expanding canon of writing that celebrates Wilson’s contributions to the world stage.