Ben Okri
Ben Okri
Ben Okri OBE FRSLis a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez...
NationalityNigerian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth15 March 1959
CountryNigeria
reality inventing
When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.
down-and doe up-and-down
I learned that life will go through changes - up and down and up again. It's what life does.
artist broken enemy
Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
people healthy stories
People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
spirit enchanted
We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.
scientist
I was going to be a scientist.
home homeless
To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
gold yards neglect
Don't neglect the gold in your own back yard.
home london literature
I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.
dream children kids
I was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would keep one another interested, and you weren't allowed to tell stories that everybody else knew. You had to dream up new ones.
mean humanity definitions
We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings.
stress writing hands
I was born left-handed, but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing 'Famished Road,' which was very long, I got repetitive stress syndrome. My right wrist collapsed, so I started using my left hand. The prose I wrote with my left hand came out denser, so later on I had to change it.
heart eye community
The earliest storytellers were magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. They were, it would seem, old as time, and as terrifying to gaze upon as the mysteries with which they wrestled .. (they) helped the community live though one more darkness, with eyes wide open, and with hearts set alight.
darkness inner-darkness
An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.