Events

The UNSRC Film Soci­ety and Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty Writ­ers House joined the UNSRC Soci­ety of Writ­ers to cel­e­brate the great Niger­ian and world renowned writer Chin­ua Achebe. The cel­e­bra­tion was held on his birth­day, 15 Novem­ber. Rep­re­sent­ing the Achebe fam­i­ly was his grand­daugh­ter Chochi Ejuey­itchi, who shared her warm and some­times humor­ous accounts of her grand­fa­ther. A host of lumi­nar­ies from the world of edu­ca­tion, lit­er­a­ture and the arts joined with Ambas­sador Usman Sar­ki, Deputy Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Nige­ria, to share in a diverse and mov­ing trib­ute of music, song, poet­ry, per­son­al sto­ries and film. Things Fall Apart, Chin­ua Achebe’s sem­i­nal work that trans­formed the world of African Lit­er­a­ture and opened the world and pos­si­bil­i­ties of African lit­er­a­ture for a new gen­er­a­tion of African writ­ers was high­light­ed in read­ings by author Uwem Akpan (“Say You’re One of Them”), stu­dent com­ments by Edu­ca­tor Olu­tosin Mustapha of Fred­er­ick Dou­glas Acad­e­my VII High School and Dar­rel Ale­jan­dro Holnes of Rut­gers Writ­ers House and orig­i­nal musi­cal com­po­si­tion by sax­o­phon­ist David Engel­hard. The singers from Sri Chin­moy: The Peace Med­i­ta­tion at the Unit­ed Nations per­formed “Chin­ua Achebe”, a song writ­ten and com­posed by Sri Chin­moy, the leader of the Peace Med­i­ta­tion group, which was ded­i­cat­ed to the writer. An orig­i­nal poem “A Poet Daughter’s Farewell: Still Morn­ing Yet” was writ­ten and mov­ing­ly read by Abena P.A. Busia, Pro­fes­sor and Chair, Depart­ment of Women’s and Gen­der Stud­ies, Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty.

Fam­i­ly friend and dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sor of Africana-Amer­i­can and Africana Stud­ies, Chuk­wu­ma Azuonye, trav­el­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts, Boston, shared the glob­al impact of Mr. Achebe’s work. The pro­gram end­ed with an inter­view filmed at Chin­ua Achebe’s home near Bard Col­lege Cam­pus, 28 June 2008, where he taught and lived with his wife and fam­i­ly from 1998 to 2011, pre­sent­ed by UNSRC Film Soci­ety Pres­i­dent Bahu­la Bor­ing.