N. Scott Momaday designated UNESCO Artist for Peace
12-05-2004 10:00 am Celebrated US author Navarre Scott Momaday was designated UNESCO Artist for Peace by UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura in a ceremony at the Organization’s Headquarters on 12 May 2004. Mr Momaday received this distinction “for his outstanding achievements as a writer and painter, his action in support of the restoration and preservation of Native American heritage and cultural traditions and communities […] and in recognition of his dedication to UNESCO’s Programme for intercultural dialogue and for the safeguarding of indigenous cultures.”
Growing up, he was not only exposed to the Kiowa traditions of his father's family but to the Navajo, Apache and Pueblo Indian cultures of the Southwest. His work as novelist, scholar, painter, printmaker and poet, combines modern Anglo-American literary methods with Native American traditions of poetry and story telling.
Mr Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969 for his first novel, House Made of Dawn. His books have been translated into French, Japanese, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish. Educated at the universities of New Mexico and Stanford, Mr Momaday is Regent’s Professor of Humanities at the University of Arizona and Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C.
He moreover founded the Buffalo Trust, a non-profit foundation, to preserve, protect and restitute Native cultural heritage, which is working with UNESCO on a project to create Community Multimedia Centres in partnership with Native American communities in the USA. The Centres will help safeguard and revitalize the intangible heritage of the American Indians, using traditional and electronic communication technologies to help the young generations access their heritage.
Mr Momaday received this distinction “for his outstanding achievements as a writer and painter, his action in support of the restoration and preservation of Native American heritage and cultural traditions and communities […] and in recognition of his dedication to UNESCO’s Programme for intercultural dialogue and for the safeguarding of indigenous cultures.”