Review of The Lost Lombi: A Story That Demands to Be Told

Some stories are not just performances on a stage—they are echoes of history, reminders of forgotten voices, and reflections of the past that still shape the present. The Lost Lombi is one of those stories.

Set against the brutal backdrop of the Congolese Civil War, the play unearths the human experiences often overshadowed by statistics and headlines. It follows the journey of a child soldier who, amidst the violence and destruction, falls in love with someone from an opposing tribe. Their love defies the deep-rooted hate that war has sown, but reality is unrelenting. A child is born from this love, but in an act of painful sacrifice, the mother gives the baby away. That child, adopted by a white family, grows up detached from their origins, and in turn, their own children feel lost, untethered from their roots. The cycle of searching continues until, generations later, a daughter—pregnant and longing to understand her ancestry—returns to Congo to uncover the story of where she truly comes from.

At its core, The Lost Lombi is a play about loss, survival, and identity. It brings urgent awareness to the plight of child soldiers—how boys were forced to become men too soon, and how war turned children into weapons. But it also reminds us that even in the depths of trauma, there was still love, still humanity. It reframes the narrative, showing us that these child soldiers were not just products of war; they were people, stripped of innocence but not of emotion.

As the founder of Melanated Minds, a platform dedicated to amplifying the stories of the African diaspora, I understand the necessity of telling these narratives. Too often, blackness is portrayed as a monolith, as if our history is one-dimensional. But stories like The Lost Lombi challenge that simplification. They remind us how complex, rich, and layered our histories truly are. These are not just personal stories of one writer or one play—these are collective stories that speak to millions.

This is not just African history. It is not just black history. This is world history. And it is history that needs to be told.

The play is heavy—because history is heavy. But that weight is necessary. Understanding where we come from, both the beauty and the pain, is essential to knowing where we are going. It is essential to healing. The Lost Lombi is a testament to that. It is an ode to resilience, to love amidst destruction, and to the eternal quest for belonging.

These are the stories our audience of over 170,000 across platforms engages with, because these are the stories that matter. These are the stories that shape us.

And this is exactly why The Lost Lombi is a play that demands to be seen.