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Prof.
Chudi Uwazuruike: Political Sociologist and international affairs scholar, mass communications expert, and novelist-playwright, Chudi Uwazurike, is a Senior Fellow, Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean, (IRADAC) at City College, City University of New York. An fervent believer in the imperative of the industrial revolution, his 2003 keynote address at the inauguration of the Ambassador Emeka Echeruo Center for Public Policy and Diplomacy at Imo State University in Owerri, Nigeria, defined good governance in Africa as the ability of today's elite to engender the technological revamping of the dreary life of the people, just as nations from Singapore and China to India, have managed to do with a determined leadership. His main arguments are summed up in the monograph by Triatiantic Books, Instrumental Pan-Africanism: High Tech and the Politics of African Survival in the 21st Century - A Place for the Black Diaspora, which focuses on the role of the African and African American business, technical and managerial genius in transforming somnolent lands th.at cannot survive the galloping technological feats of other lands at the current pace.
Educated at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Chudi Uwazurike went on to receive a Master's in Mass Communications from the University of Lagos and a PhD at Harvard specializing in the politi~al sociology of comparative development. A Graduate Fellow of the Center for International Development while at Harvard, he became a decade later the first fellow of the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies at the City University of New York in 1997, and served as the Acting Director of the City College Graduate Program in International Relations.
Involved in arranging the historic trip that brought the last of the Pioneer Pan-Africanists Nnamdi Azikiwe to Lincoln University in 1994, he went on to author the well-received review of the singular career of the late Nigerian president and world figure, whose revised edition is expected this November, The Man Called Zik of New Africa: Nigeria's Pan-African Statesman in Critical Retrospective. A committed student of the vagaries of his nation's over-heated politics, his forthcoming book is titled Democracy and the Development Imperative in Africa: Five Legitimation Crises in the Nigerian Experience. On yet another issue of grave importance to him, the continental context of Africa's survival in an age of globalization, he is concluding a tome titied The Mission of the All Africa Parliament: Essays on Democracy, Development and Limits of Globalization in Dependent Africa.
Well-known among fellow Diaspora Africans as a novelist and playwright whose dramas have been staged at Times Square in New York and elsewhere, his writings include To Tangle With Tarzan: Six Stories and an Epic and the novels - Yesterday Was Silent and Uzo Nwanna and the Song of a Thousand Tunes. Among his plays are Prisoner of the Kalakiri, With Whom the Gods Dance, The Fire and the Goddess, and The Flycatcher's Identity. Some of his literary works are to be found on Amazon.com and other digital outlets. In addition, he is the founder of the monthly magazine, African Profiles USA that has continued to chart Global African trends and issues across the trans-Atiantic void.
His research papers have appeared in Trans-Africa Forum Journal of Modern African Studies, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Dialectical Anthropology, and other publications, apart from book chapters. A recipient of various prizes and awards, he has lectured at various universities, among them Michigan State University, State University of New York, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Columbia University, Southern University at Baton Rouge, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Truman State University in Kirksville, Tennessee, Northeastern University School of Diplomacy in Boston, the United National Institute for Training and Research, New York University, Central Michigan University, and many others.
In the Nigerian community, he was host of the Ford Foundation-sponsored conference on the Nigerian constitutio. Dr. Uwazurike has served as the founder of the group, IgOO Think Tank and Strategy Group, Chairman of the World Igbo Congress Intergovernmental Affairs Council and member of the WIC Advisory Committee on the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, Chairman of the Mbano Empowerment Action Committee, among many other engagements. In 2003 he was chairman of the New York Imo State Association that hosted a successful symposium on the future of Imo State. Under his leadership, his committee has be~n responsible for the befitting farewell tribute in New York to the revered founding governor of Imo State, Chief Sam Mbakwe.
Among the several honors for his various contributions to scholarship, the arts and community empowerment, he has has been toasted by the Elekwa Foundation of Queens which also gave him its Alvan Ikoku Memorial Award. He is a recipient of the Nigerian Eagle Club Award, the Nigerian Society in Michigan Award, the African Club of John Jay College Award, the Southern State University international development program award, Honorary Citizen of New Orleans Proclamation, and manyb more across the United States. His brothers and close friends salute him traditionallv as Akanechemba Ndiabo
CHUDI UWAZURIKE - (Literary Offering)
List of Published Works, Staged Productions & Pending Publications
1969…..1st literary effort in Igbo, Ogu Ndi Oloko n’Abadaba Luru
1970…..Novella, The Death of Nowasi completed; unpublished
1972…. Return of the Second Generation (play)
1973…. Novel Yesterday Was Silent – first draft finished at 19th birthday; (publ1994)
1975…. NBC offers radio drama of Fire the Goddess (later The Fire & the Goddess).
… Won John F. Kennedy Essay Scholarship contest that paid for tuition at the University of Nigeria Nsukka
1976…. Ghost of Dike Omezue at Nsukka (later With Whom the Gods Dance)
…..Fire the Goddess selected as Command Performance play for the Nigerian independence celebrations in Enugu; staged at the Hotel Presidential featuring Pete Edochie, Ifeanyi Gbulie; Kevin Ejiofor, producer.
1977…. 2nd draft of novel, Uzo Nwanna finished
1978….National 1st Prize Winner, NBC Independence Anniversary Essay Competition
1979…. Prisoner of the Kalakiri performed in Minna
1980…. House of Little Regrets wins 1st Prize Niger State Drama Festival
…….. Flight of Simaroke published by Longmans
1985…. Studied at the Boston Film-Video Foundation and later at the Carpenter Center
for Film at Harvard University with noted French film director Jean Rouche, founder of Cinema verite, according to a 2004 obtuary in the NY Times
1987….Requested to reviewed Achebe’s new novel Anthills of the Savanna for the pioneering journal of democracy movement then heating up in Washington and in the wake of the entrenched militarism all over Africa. Co-founded African Commentary Magazine with Achebe, Barth Nnaji and Okey Ndibe, among others
1989….Started Nakanu African Theater; staged readings of various scripts
1990….Nakanu African Theater produces The Flycatcher’s Identity at the Aronow Theater at City College, performed in NY
1991…The Flycatcher’s Identity makes it off-off Broadway to the Master Theater, a 300-seat house, then later in Brooklyn at the Paul Robeson Theater.
….African Profiles Magazine founded.
1992… To Tangle With Tarzan published by Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ
1994… Yesterday Was Silent published by Sungai Books
1995… Film script version of The Flycatcher finished by Ake Ufumaka Jr.
1997… The Fire and the Goddess produced at Times Square. Choreographed play brought audiences to their feet at marvel of Max Gbanite’s production.
2001… Prisoner of the Kalakiri produced in Brooklyn
2003… Almost 30 years later, Uzo Nwanna and the Song of a Thousand Tunes (novel)
2004-5…Plans continue to turn out Playing Off-Off Broadway: Three Plays in the Big
Apple, The Tempus N’Efefe Tale, Takada At Freedom Square (play), The Guns of Olili (play), Lord Killjoy Rose With Sun (poetry).
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