Pitt to Host Reading, Book Release, and Sneak Preview of My Journey Home, Documentary Featuring Faith Adiele
PITTSBURGH—To celebrate University of Pittsburgh Assistant Professor of English Faith Adiele's new book, Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun (Norton, 2004), the Department of English will host a reading and book release at 7 p.m. April 6 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125, Schenley Drive, Oakland. In addition, a sneak preview of My Journey Home, a PBS documentary featuring Adiele's investigation into her Nigerian/Nordic heritage, will be shown.
The free public event will be followed by a reception and book signing.
Adiele's book is featured in the April issues of O and Essence magazines. A review in Publishers Weekly Reviews praised Adiele for "a comic's timing, a novelist's keen observations about human idiosyncrasies, and an anthropologist's sensitivity to issues of race and culture."
The book is a memoir of Adiele's travels to Thailand and her fascination with Buddhist nuns. According to the review, as Adiele sought out the stories of these nuns, she rather impulsively decided to become one through "temporary ordination." Quotes from Buddhist luminaries and excerpts from Adiele's travel journal, which describe her own spiritual frustrations and growth, supplement the book's main narrative.
Adiele is the daughter of a Scandinavian American mother and Nigerian-born father. Her parents separated when her mother was pregnant. She first met her father and siblings when she traveled to Nigeria at age 26. My Journey Home chronicles Adiele's second visit to Nigeria, 12 years later.
In addition to Adiele's story, the feature-length PBS documentary charts two other families coming to grips with their global ancestral roots and their identities as Americans. PBS will air the documentary April 7, and WQED-TV will show it
April 25.
Pitt's Department of English, Creative Writing Program, Film Studies Program, Cultural Studies Program, Office of International Services, and University Center for International Studies are sponsoring the event.
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3/25/04/tmw
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