Chancellor’s Convocation: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Momaday to visit

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

Hosted by Chancellor John Wiley, the event is an official welcome to the university for new students, although the public is invited to attend the free event. Tickets, which are required, are available at the Wisconsin Union Theater box office weekdays, 11:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

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.

A member of the Kiowa Nation, Momaday 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 knows the stories of the past can transform the future. Behind his work beats the heart of a storyteller, keeping alive – in myths and memories – the people persecuted and the land lost.

“In the oral tradition,” Momaday has said, “stories are not told merely to entertain or instruct. They are told to be believed. Stories are realities lived and believed. They are true.”

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. The Chazen Fellows Program is made possible through the generosity of UW alumni Jerome A. and Simona A. Chazen.

Those attending the convocation will be eligible to win prizes, including a Palm Pilot, tickets to UW games and money deposited in WisCard accounts.

A book signing with Momaday, coordinated by the University Book Store, will follow the convocation.