Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia African Studies Institute will present the 2015 Darl Snyder Lecture March 3 at 10 a.m. in Masters Hall of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. Amadou Koné, a renowned African novelist and professor, will talk on “Questioning the African quest for identity.” The event is free and open to the public.
An internationally recognized award-winning author, Koné has published six novels, three plays and several short stories. He has published works on African literature, African oral literature and the novel and African literature and cinema. He has received numerous awards including the grand prize at the Interafrican Theatrical Competition (1976), the Pro Helvetia Foundation fellowship (1981) and the Best African Novel Award from the Léopald Sédar Senghor Foundation (1985). He was a Fellow of the Alexander Von-Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany, from 1990 to 1992.
In the lecture, Koné will explore the multitude of explanations why the quest for identity is such a foremost concern for Africans whereas people from other continents do not dwell so much on the issue. As part of the event, certificates in African Studies will be presented to undergraduate students who have completed the program requirements. The UGA Libraries will display selected materials from the Snyder collections—which are held in the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library—outside of Masters Hall.
“Professor Koné is a prolific novelist and playwright who wrote his first novel when he was still in high school,” said Karim Traore, associate professor in the department of comparative literature and chair of the 2015 Darl Snyder Lecture planning committee. “He is also a scholar of renown who helped introduce African ways of doing literature into academia. His lecture will address some of the challenges with defining identity in the African context.”
The Darl Snyder Lecture Series was established in 1992 in recognition of Snyder’s dedication, research and service-learning programs in and about Africa. Snyder’s affiliation with UGA began in 1969 as a program specialist at the Rural Development Center in Tifton. He eventually became director of the Office of International Development in 1989. Although he retired from UGA in 1992, Snyder and his family continue to support African studies and UGA endeavors in Africa.
For more information on the African Studies Institute and the Darl Snyder Lecture series, see http://afrstu.uga.edu/research-outreach/annual-darl-snyder-lecture.