In 2014, the Department of African American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences held a daylong conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe’s landmark novel “Arrow of God.” The symposium featured some of the top scholars in the field of African literature to talk about the man who was called “the father of the African novel.”
The scholars gathered not only to honor “Arrow of God,” which is seen as one of the most important indictments of colonialism in literature. They also wanted to remember Achebe himself, who had died just the year before. Some in the Syracuse University audience may have remembered his receiving an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University in 1998.
This spring, that conference has been memorialized in a book, “Illuminations on Chinua Achebe: The Art of Resistance,” issued by Africa World Press. It was edited by Herbert G. Ruffin II, associate professor and chair of African American studies, and Micere Githae Mugo, professor emerita of African American studies, the co-conveners of the 2014 conference. In addition to contributing through editing and writing, Ruffin lent one of his paintings for the volume’s cover.
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