BURLINGTON, Vt. - Congolese playwright Pierre Mujomba will speak about his life and writing on Tuesday, April 7 at 6 p.m. at Champlain College's Alumni Auditorium. It is free and open to the public.

Mujomba joined the Champlain College learning community this past fall as the institution's first City of Refuge visiting writer and the second recipient of the Roger H. Perry endowed chair. The City of Refuge program is a national initiative that offers writers facing persecution in their home countries a sanctuary where they can continue to work. His talk is entitled "A Writer in Exile: Reflections on Censorship and Freedom."

Mujomba, a playwright of international acclaim, is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which he fled in 2003 after the French-language publication of his best-known work, La Dernière Envelope (English title, The Lost Envelope). The play, which concerns the regime of former DRC president Mobutu Sese Seko, has been translated into English, as has Kalemba's Year without Pay.

During his residence at Champlain, Mujomba has worked on his plays and guest lectured at several Champlain classes. Being away from the DRC, he says, allows him to express himself more freely. "In Congo we have the system of censorship," he says. "When I'm writing in Congo, I'm censoring myself. [Here] you're freer to write what you want. You have freedom to write all you can write ... Also, when I'm here, I am not only a Congolese writer. I am an African writer. It is important because when I'm writing, I'm no longer writing for a very small group. I try to write as an African who wants to let people know here what happened in Africa."

Prior to coming to Champlain College, Mujomba was a visiting fellow in the Africana Studies department at Brown University in Providence, R.I. He also recently worked as a consultant on African linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University and has presented his work and lectured widely in North America, France, Belgium, and his native country. He holds a master's degree in French and African linguistics from the National Pedagogic University in Kinshasa, DRC.

Earlier this month, Champlain College's international initiatives for students and faculty, including the City of Refuge visiting scholar in residence program, earned Champlain a prestigious award for innovation from The Institute of International Education.

Champlain College President David Finney accepted the 2009 IIE Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education (IIE) at a ceremony held at the United Nations in New York City. The awards promote and honor outstanding initiatives in international higher education among the members of IIE's association of more than 1,000 institutions.

Champlain College earned the top recognition in the category of "Internationalizing the Campus," for advancing international curriculum development and providing innovative services to students through its Institute for Global Engagement headed by Gary Scudder, assistant dean for Global Engagement.

 
Champlain's Institute for Global Engagement developed three successful student and faculty programs designed to make the college's curriculum more international:
• Global Modules program (four-week, intensive online projects linking more than 3,000 students in 12 countries)
• Faculty Internationalization Initiative offering stipends for summer travel and course development
• A visiting scholar-in-residence program for international faculty.

Champlain College was founded in 1878, and at its core is a bricks and mortar school, offering professionally focused majors. It has 2,000 campus-based undergraduate students and is ranked in the top tier of Best Baccalaureate Colleges in the North by 2009 America's Best Colleges, published by U.S. News & World Report. To learn more about Champlain College, visit www.champlain.edu.

For background on Champlain's Global Modules, Faculty Internationalization Initiative and the Cities of Refuge Writers in Residence program, please visit:
http://www.champlain.edu/News-and-Events/News/Global-Modules.html

CITY OF REFUGE SPEAKER AT CHAMPLAIN COLLEGE, April 7, 6 p.m., Alumni Auditorium, Champlain College, Burlington, Vt. Congolese playwright and City of Refuge Writer in Residence Pierre Mujomba will speak about his life and writing in a talk entitled "A Writer in Exile: Reflection on Censorship and Freedom. It is free and open to the public. For information, contact Assistant Dean for Global Engagement at Champlain College, Gary Scudder, (802) 865-6407.

Background on the Cities of Refuge North America Program

Cities of Refuge North America aids persecuted writers around the globe by cultivating safe havens for them in North America, spaces where they may practice their craft freely, unfettered by censorship and political repression. Our work assists writers worldwide while enriching both communities and the literary landscape in North America.

Writing is still a perilous act in many places throughout the world. Between January and June 2006, 19 writers were murdered, 33 had received death threats and 142 were imprisoned, according to International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee.

Cities of Refuge North America is comprised of writers who have come together to help other writers in need. Today, original founders Russell Banks, Salman Rushdie and Wole Soyinka serve on the Executive Board, along with Carolyn Forché, Caryl Phillips, Michael Ondaatje, Derek Walcott, Dionne Brand and Jayne Cortez. Our steadfast Advisory Board members include Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, and William Kennedy, among many others.

Writers persecuted worldwide regularly seek our help, and several who have been vetted by the Executive Board are awaiting placement. Cities of Refuge North America is an outgrowth of the International Parliament of Writers, formally established in Paris in 1994 by Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, Jacques Derrida and Vaclav Havel, among others, in response to the assassination of writers in Algeria. It was after the assassination of 39-year old writer Tahar Djaout that an appeal was first launched. Within days, in July 1993, at the initiative of Carrefour des littératures in Strasbourg, France, 300 writers worldwide signed a petition in support of the creation of a network of cities that would provide refuge for writers under threat. Months later, on February 14th, the fifth anniversary of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the organization established an executive branch and elected Salman Rushdie its first President.

 
The dissolution of the International Parliament of Writers (IPW) produced two organizations in its place, one in North America and one in Europe. In 2003, Russell Banks, the last President of the IPW, along with Salman Rushdie and former IPW President Wole Soyinka, established Cities of Refuge North America, formerly called the North American Network of Cities of Asylum (NANCA). ICORN, the International Cities of Refuge Network, is based in Stavanger, Norway and has organized over twenty cities of asylum, or refuge, across Europe.

The first North American city to offer refuge to a writer through this organization was Las Vegas, Nevada, followed quickly by Ithaca, New York, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Cities of Refuge North America is committed to expansion of the city network, and believes that in each City in North America a grassroots effort is essential to ensure the longevity of the program. Each prospective city will be evaluated in this light, and upon acceptance we will do our utmost to match a persecuted writer with a city willing to host and support that writer.