CHINUA ACHEBE, Things Fall Apart Author, To Receive One of the Largest Awards in the Arts
The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize – Wed., October 27, 2010, NYC
Leaders in African and American Literature and the Arts Gather to Mark Achebe’s Worldwide Impact
WHO: Lowery Stokes Sims, curator, Museum of Arts and Design
Jane Alexander, stage, film and television actress and former NEA chair, will deliver message from Toni Morrison
Sonia Sanchez, poet, playwright, essayist and lecturer
Kwame Anthony Appiah, author, philosopher, African studies scholar and President, PEN American Center
Vallejo Gantner, artistic director, Performance Space 122
Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, author of the Jamaican classic The Harder They Come
Elizabeth Streb, Streb Laboratory for Action Mechanics (S.L.A.M.)
Ruth Simmons, President, Brown University
Performance by:
Baba Ola Jagun & The Ancestral Rhythms
A member of legendary Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s band for over a decade, master Nigerian drummer Baba Ola Jagun is part of the great Afrobeat tradition.
WHAT:
Some of the country’s leading voices in African and American literature and the arts will gather to honor Chinua Achebe as he receives the 2010 Gish Prize. With approximately $300,000 from silent film stars Dorothy and Lillian Gish, the Gish Prize is one of the largest and most prestigious awards in the arts.
The groundbreaking Nigerian author was nominated by a worldwide arts community and selected for his impact in putting African literature on the map, and for using his creative and critical writing as a force to forge a better understanding of modern-day Africa. His novel Things Fall Apart (1958) has sold over ten million copies, been translated into more than 50 languages, and is essential reading in schools around the world.
Gish Prize recipients have shaped the cultural landscape in drama, music, dance, art, architecture, lighting design, film, and literature. Achebe joins an impressive list of past Gish Prize winners including Robert Redford, Ornette Coleman, Merce Cunningham and Frank Gehry.
WHEN:
Wednesday, October 27, 2008
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm, Ceremony to begin at 6:45 pm sharp, Reception to follow.
WHERE:
Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel
145 West 44th Street, New York, New York
Read 2010 Gish Prize press release/Chinua Achebe, or visit www.gishprize.org
RSVP: Pamela Johnson, [email protected], 615-512-9977
(*Note: Program is subject to change)
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