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
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.
humans human-beings knows
I know that human beings are capable of anything.
fighting people share
I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.
law police world
The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.
dancer spirit afraid-to-love
If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom.
country character ghetto
Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life, his largeness of spirit. The characters of Turgenev are ghetto dwellers. Dickens characters are Nigerians.
stories world converting
The greatest religions convert the world through stories.
fear heart stories
Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
ignorance simple parent
We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see.
dream highest
a dream can be the highest point of a life
dream real world
We can redream this world and make the dream come real. Human beings are gods hidden from themselves.