2006 POINT SCHOLARS

Nick Nanna Hadikwa Mwaluko

Columbia University

Arts: Visual and Performing

Nick Mwaluko was born in Tanzania, East Africa but raised in neighboring Kenya. Growing up a foreigner meant his family stuck closely to traditional African values, most of which do not support active identification with homosexuality. As a result, Nick looked for financial, emotional, and spiritual support outside the family, in communal settings very different from the tribe.

After high school, Nick worked with Reuters News Agency’s Nairobi bureau, the regional headquarters for thirteen countries located in East and Central Africa, including the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius, Seychelles and Comoros. While initially hired as news assistant, Nick quickly rose to the ranks of feature writer, using famine in Ethiopia and Somalia, genocide in Rwanda, countless coups in central Africa as a springboard for personal narratives triggered by political upheaval. Two stories—one on street children, another on high-ranking African women in political office—featured in The Washington Times. When Nick arrived in New York, he worked a year at Reuters Equities desk in New York City, before entering Columbia University on scholarship and fellowship. Transitioning from female to male in his third year, he remained on the Dean’s List every semester, finally graduating Magnum Cum Laude. Nick’s play Waafrika premiered with critical acclaim, has won numerous awards; television and movie adaptations are currently under negotiation. Nick will pursue an MFA (Masters in Fine Arts) in Playwriting at Columbia University.

In Nick's own words: “There is no such thing as a self. We are made up of fragmented wholes, hence our ability to identify with things so different yet so similar. It’s the ability to draw close to the mystery, no matter how terrifying that mystery may seem, that makes me believe in Man. I refuse to succumb to Man’s downfall, destruction; it’s too easy. Even in defeat, Man is a glorious creation. This is what I want my work to remind people of that hope lives because or even despite our circumstances provided focus moves towards an elliptical truth.”