New York - Black women always play central roles in the plays of US playwright Lynn Nottage.

In Intimate Apparel, the author writes about an African-American woman who designs fascinating underwear in the New York of 1905. Her products sell like hotcakes in the city's high society and brothels alike.

Another piece, Fabulation, talks about a powerful black woman whose husband disappears with her hard-earned money, leaving her to raise her kid in poverty.

This week, Nottage won the Pulitzer Prize - one of the most prestigious awards for a US playwright - for her most recent drama, Ruined.

"I am orbiting the Earth," Nottage, 44, rejoiced in an interview after Monday's announcement of the annual Pulitzers for journalism, literature and music.

"I hope it will raise more awareness about the issues that the play raises."

Nottage was born in Brooklyn, New York, where she still lives with her husband and child.

In Ruined, she speaks of the fight for survival of women in Congo's long-running civil war.

"The war ended in 2002, but the conflict and the violence against women continues," Nottage told the New York Daily News.

Nottage travelled several times to Congo, where she interviewed her "African sisters."

She is only the second African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The title of Ruined refers to the fates of Congolese women who are raped and subjected to so-called female circumcision, or genital mutilation, in accordance with ancient tradition. Inspired by Bertold Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, Nottage sets her story in a brothel.

The madame character, Mama Nadi, is full of ideas and a shrewd businesswoman, who offers protection to her young employees, who have all suffered greatly. The play, horrible and yet full of humour, celebrates life and hope in times of despair, the Pulitzer Prize jury said.

"I wanted to depict the modern Africa with all its complexity and to show the beauty and humour and what keeps people there going," Nottage said.

Further, she sought to inspire her own 11-year-old daughter.

"My mom was incredibly politically and socially engaged," Nottage explained. "I hope I pass that legacy on to my daughter."

She planned to donate a portion of her 10,000-dollar prize money to the Panzi Hospital in Congo to help women receive plastic surgery to help heal their most disfiguring physical wounds from the conflict.

Ruined made its stage debut in 2008 at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The play is currently being performed at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York.