UNESCO Artists for Peace are internationally-renowned people who use their influence, charisma and prestige to help promote UNESCO’s message and programs. UNESCO works with these distinguished personalities in order to heighten public awareness regarding key development issues and to inform the public about the Organization.One U.S. citizen is included in this distinguished group, N. Scott Momaday, a Kiowa, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel, House Made of Dawn, Momaday is the Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and operates the Buffalo Trust, a nonprofit organization working to preserve native cultures. He has most recently been awarded a 2007 National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush.
He was designated UNESCO Artist for Peace by UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura in a ceremony at the Organization’s Headquarters on 12 May 2004.
Mr Momaday received this distinction “for his outstanding achievements as a writer and painter, his action in support of the restoration and preservation of Native American heritage and cultural traditions and communities […] and in recognition of his dedication to UNESCO’s Programme for intercultural dialogue and for the safeguarding of indigenous cultures.”