FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (4/06)
Contact: Lynn Stewart or Kelsey Johnson, Centenary News Service, 318-841-7265

Centenary's Attaway Fellows Explore Issues of Genocide and Intolerance April 17–21

	Zlata Filipovic

SHREVEPORT, LA — Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger, accomplished writers and experts on genocide, will give two public talks and visit several classrooms in the Shreveport-Bossier area as Centenary College's Attaway Fellows in Civic Culture April 17–21.

On Tuesday, April 18, the Attaway Fellows will visit a class on global politics and dine with Centenary student representatives from the International Society for Cultural Awareness. That evening Ms. Filipovic will give a public talk called “A Bosnian War Survivor Remembers” from 5–6:15 p.m. at Marjorie Lyons Playhouse, which will be followed by a book signing.

Wednesday's schedule begins with the Fellows speaking to fourth and fifth graders at Fairfield Elementary Magnet on children's war literature. Then they will talk with Loyola High School students on the issue of intolerance.

Ms. Filipovic and Ms. Challenger will will address an assembly of about 250 students at Caddo Middle Magnet early Thursday morning on how children survive war. The Fellows will be back on Centenary's campus from 11:10 a.m.–noon for a public convocation called “Memorializing Genocide through Music and Literature” in Kilpatrick Auditorium, which will also be followed by a book signing.

Their visit will wrap up on Friday, April 21 with visits to a class on European politics and a class that is studying the Holocaust in art, literature and film.

Ms. Filipovic is the author of Zlata's Diary, the international bestseller that chronicles her teenage years in war-torn Sarajevo and has been translated into 36 languages since its release in 1993. She has spoken about her experiences at schools and universities around the world and has worked with different organizations such as the Anne Frank House, United Nations and United Nations Children's Fund. Her next book, Stolen Voices: Young People’s War Diaries from 1914-2004, edited with Ms. Challenger, will be out in the fall.

	Melanie Challenger

Ms. Challenger is the founder and director of The Mostar Foundation, which has worked with Anne Frank Trust, UNICEF, British Council and Canadian Initiative for Children in Conflict on projects that use music and literature to promote moral awareness in young people. She was granted permission to adapt Anne Frank's diary into a libretto, and it was the main musical contribution of the 60th anniversary Holocaust Memorial Day at Westminster Hall. Ms. Challenger is an award-winning, published poet, who is currently working on an anthology of war poetry, the libretto for an oratorio that will open Britain’s first major Jewish Heritage Centre in Liverpool in 2008 and a non-fiction book, Drawn to Fire.

Funded by and named for Douglas and Marion Attaway, with matching funds from the State of Louisiana, Centenary's Attaway Professorships in Civic Culture are awarded to intellectuals who have made notable contributions to the public discussion of ideas. They present themselves not as academics who occasionally have public roles, but as public thinkers and gifted communicators whose foremost interest is civic culture.

For more information, contact Dr. Lisa J. Nicoletti, chair of Centenary's Department of Art & Visual Culture, at 318-869-5261.

- 30 -