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
writing agreement important
It is not important for me as a writer that you leave a piece of writing of mine with either an agreement or even a resonance with what I have said. What is important is that you leave with the resonance of what you have felt and what you thought in reaction to that.
writing past circles
I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry.
writing perfect office
If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a short story in five pages. Furthermore, a short story is a perfect place to learn the craft
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.
book reading writing
Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they'll only see their narrow range reflected in it.
writing reader
The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.
best call higher state takes
When I write a poem, I go into a state of self-forgetfulness, and something higher takes over; I like to call it my best self.
became
I became a sceptic of one way of seeing the world. And I think it is what started me in my awareness that any worldview is superstitious.
art politics
Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible.
good hearing people seeing study time
I study people all the time. For some reason, we're not very good at seeing what's there or hearing what we're hearing.
allowed everybody kids stories
You see, 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.
essential happened reality religion
At the heart of 'The Famished Road' is a philosophical conundrum - for me, an essential one: what is reality? Everybody's reality is subjective; it's conditioned by upbringing, ideas, temperament, religion, what's happened to you.
absolute bottom human learnt life love reached rock saw time worst
The worst time was 1983. Love and life and everything went wrong. I reached absolute rock bottom. I saw the Minotaur at the bottom of the abyss. I learnt of the harshness of the world and its impartiality to human failure.
act acts builds castles civilization material mind raw takes
Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.