Browsing Through The Book Shelves

Thursday 29^th November 2012

We never really know what a new day brings.  Today as I browsed through my book shelves, I came across a rather brilliant writer by the name of Ben Okri, a Nigerian poet and novelist.  He is also a booker Prize winning author for his novel The Famished Road.

He is described by the critics as someone who makes the essay into an art form and I’m not surprised.  I came across a lot of thought provoking material.  Consider this one:

“Don’t wait till you’re dead to know that in reality the whole of life is on your side.”

The following passages  may not be typical for the so called developed world, but are, sadly a reality still for many others around our world today:

“For essentially, it is love that we are talking about here; love for the better life that could be real for all the people; love for the greater possibilities of the future that are being murdered in the present by short-sighted leaders; love for the greater way, a higher justice that sits in the land like a wise and invisible god; love for better breathing in the beggar and the basket-weaver; love for women who bear all the suffering and wend their ways to deserted marketplaces and who create such small miracles of survival out of the bitter dust of the dying age; love for the children who grow up under a generous sun and who do not know just how distorted and blood-ridden are the futures they will inherit, who play in the streets and at their games while poison and despair gather about them and hover over their heads like the angels of death; love for the regeneration of a people who deserve so much better and who never seem to get any justice or many good days or much hope on this round earth which glows like a miraculous dream, in space, to the astonished gaze of astronauts.”

“There are some things on earth that are stronger than death.  One of these is the eternal human quest for justice; a people cannot live without it, and in due course, they will die to make it possible for their children.  Fables are made of this.  Anyone who can listen, hear me: a writer in Nigeria was executed while seeking a better life for his people;  the consequences of this are incalculable; his name was Ken Saro-Wiwa.”

The above passages are taken from a chapter called (Fables Are Made of This: For Ken Saro-Wiwa: 1941 – 1996) A Way of Being Free (Ben Okri)