Noted poet and journalist Obi Nwakanma will take the podium on Monday, Feb. 7, to present the lecture, "Imagined and Transitional Nations: Matters Arising in African Literature," at the University of Houston Honors College Commons, 2nd floor of the M.D. Anderson Library. The lecture kicks off at 2:30 p.m. and will be followed by a question and answer session. Following the lecture, Nwakanma will present an evening of poetry reading beginning at 7 p.m. at the neighboring Houston Institute of Culture, located at 708-C Telephone Road.
"We are especially excited to have Obi Nwakanma as a guest lecturer," said history professor Kairn Klieman. "It is an honor to host him and a rare opportunity to share with our students a worldly perspective on African literature."
Nwakanma earned international respect among the literary community with his critically acclaimed biography, "Christopher Okigbo 1930-67: Thirsting for Sunlight." In 1996, the author's first collection of poetry, "The Roped Urn," also earned him the Association of Nigerian Authors' Cadbury Poetry Prize. Nwakanma's work has appeared in Newsweek and The Guardian, in addition to his weekly column on social and political issues for Nigerian newspaper Vanguard. He is currently an English professor at Truman State University in Missouri.
Event sponsors include: The Houstoun Fund; Voices Breaking Boundaries; and the University of Houston's African American Studies Program, Center for Public History, department of English and department of History.