Pulitzer winner Momaday to visit

N. Scott Momaday, acclaimed novelist, poet, playwright, storyteller, painter and professor, will address the 2002 Chancellor’s Convocation at the Union Theater at 7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 17.

Hosted by University of Wisconsin–Madison Chancellor John Wiley, the event is an official welcome to the university for new students, though all students, faculty, staff and the general public are invited to attend. The event is free, but tickets are required. Tickets will be available at the Union Theater box office after September 18.

Perhaps best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “House Made of Dawn,” Momaday has won numerous awards for his writing. He has been referred to as “the dean of American Indian writers” by The New York Times.

Momaday, a member of the Kiowa Nation, was born in Oklahoma and raised in the Southwest on reservations where his parents worked as teachers. He has called himself the man made of words and has said, “If I do not speak with care, my words are wasted. If I do not listen with care, words are lost.”

Momaday is the president of the American Indian Hall of Fame and the founder and chairman of the Buffalo Trust, a nonprofit foundation for the preservation and restoration of Native American Culture and Heritage.

While at UW–Madison, Momaday will carry the title of Chazen Fellow. The Chazen Fellows program is designed to enrich undergraduate learning by bringing to campus individuals of outstanding accomplishment. Chazen Fellows have included three Nobel laureates, novelist Toni Morrison, neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, human rights/anti-genocide champion Elie Wiesel, former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, and primate behaviorist Jane Goodall.

A book signing with Momaday, coordinated by the University Book Store, will follow the convocation.
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— Gwen Evans, (608) 262-0065, gevans@facstaff.wisc.edu