Author Yaa Gyasi Headlines New Niagara University Lecture Series
Acclaimed author Yaa Gyasi was the featured presenter for the first-ever installment of the Peggy and John Day University Honors Lecture Series at Niagara University, which was held Oct. 12 at the Castellani Art Museum.
A capacity crowd of nearly 200 attended the presentation. Attendees included high school and college students, as well as literature enthusiasts from throughout Western New York.
Gyasi’s talk was enthusiastically received and wide-ranging. The Homegoing author touched expertly on issues such as the writing process, how important writing is to the learning process, and how her writing has given her an insight into questions she’s had about race relations and the history of slavery and oppression in America and Ghana.
“Ms. Gyasi’s insistence on how hard she works to write and how her writing is rooted in her own past experiences served as great advice to those in attendance,” said Dr. Michael Barnwell, associate professor of philosophy and director of Niagara University’s Honors program, which sponsored the event. “Furthermore, the structure of her novel (which ranges from 1700s Ghana to modern-day America) demonstrates the rootedness of all of our experiences and how to understand anything, one must endeavor to try to understand everything.”