Ben Okri, born in Nigeria in 1959, is an essayist, novelist, and poet, most widely known for his 1991 Booker Prize winning novel, The Famished Road. In 2018 he published, Rise Like Lions: Poetry for the Many, and in 2019 the story collection, Prayer for the Living. His latest novel, The Freedom Artist, was also published in 2019. My particular favourite of his books is the wonderful, A Way of Being Free (1997) an evocative almost spiritual book about creativity, storytelling, and the power of stories.
Quotes:
"What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings?
The only hope is in the creation of alternative values, alternative realities. The only hope is in daring to redream one's place in the world - a beautiful act of imagination, and a sustained act of self-becoming. Which is to say that in some way or another we breach and confound the accepted frontiers of things." (from, "The Human Race is Not Yet Free" #23 (1989)).
"There are two essential joys in storytelling. The joy of the telling, which is to say of the artistic discovery. And the joy of listening, which is to say of the imaginative identification. Both joys are magical and important. The first involves exploration and suffering and love. The second involves silence and openness and thought. The first is the joy of giving. The second is the joy of receiving. My prayer is to be able to write stories that, to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, can be read so deeply that they are not read at all, but you become the story, while the story lasts. With the greatest writers, you continue to become more of the story long after you have finished it. Of the two joys, the first teaches us humility, while the second deepens our humanity." (from, "A Way of Being Free" (1997)).
"To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself. Beware of the storytellers who are not fully conscious of the importance of their gifts, and who are irresponsible in the application of their art; they could unwittingly help along the psychic destruction of their people."
(from, "The Joys of Storytelling III" (1996)).
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