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1 month ago | 
waterstones.com | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |Natasha Brown |Ben Okri |Abdulrazak Gurnah
Posted on 26th February 2025 by Mark Skinner Get ready for a marvellous March, as we unveil the exciting new titles published this month.
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
theguardian.com | Ben Okri
To define a people’s past is to influence their future. The past is what constitutes the bulk of a people’s identity. It is therefore not surprising that one of the biggest trends in contemporary literature centres on the theme of identity. Can there be anything more intolerable than to be told you have no history to speak of and no civilisation, and then to have a new language and civilisation imposed on you?
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May 24, 2024 | 
theguardian.com | Ben Okri
1I don’t know how many have died Or how many died before war flared up. There must be a way to listen to all The pain that burns in a people Must be a way to hear all that anguish. Pain creates pain creates deadness Of heart. Distance makes all that suffering Unreal. How else can great powers Add bombs and missiles to an agony That’s engulfing the world in fire and rage? How did we become so deaf to the death Of innocent children and their mothers?
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Apr 27, 2024 | 
fivebooks.com | Rebecca Sykes |William Golding |Ben Okri |Claire Cameron
Before we get into your five book choices, I think most people need a bit of orientation about what a Neanderthal hominid was because there are so many misleading stereotypes around. We use the term ‘hominin’ now, although people are generally familiar with ‘hominid’.* The funny thing about Neanderthals is that everybody has heard of them. They’re probably the best-known hominin species, better known even than Homo erectus.
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Apr 15, 2024 | 
independent.co.uk | Ben Okri
Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profileDon't show me this message again
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Jan 22, 2024 | 
poetryfoundation.org | Ben Okri
Born in Minna, Nigeria, to an Igbo mother and an Urhobo father, poet, fiction writer, and essayist Ben Okri spent his early childhood in London while his father studied law and returned to Nigeria with his family in 1968. He studied comparative literature at Essex...
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Jan 18, 2024 | 
nybooks.com | Ben Okri
I was talking to a builderof bridges and askedhow he built the structurethat brings two warring elementstogether. This was his answer. What is a bridge? A land divided, or the gapbetween? Most see a unitywrought through necessityand compromise, mutualrespect, or cohabitation. But he was interested in the spaceseparating these two landsthat perhaps are one hope. And thinking of the vacuummade him forge arare concept, one worthyof an old myth. He builta bridge that acknowledgedthe empty space.
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Nov 23, 2023 | 
independent.co.uk | Ben Okri
Nobody who is shortlisted for the Booker Prize really loses. One of the most loved and prestigious prizes in the world, it has a sort of magic to it. And so when you come this far and make it onto the shortlist, there is really only winning. From here on, good stuff happens. The rest is up to you.
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Sep 12, 2023 | 
crimereads.com | Ben Okri
The first crime was the most defining moment in the history of the human. It was not Cain’s murder. That was defining too. But the first crime began in the realm of the numinous. It could only be deemed an act of spirit. Philosophers and religionists and mystics struggle to define it. The closest anyone came is the suggestion that it was a moment that was a break in the eternal axis of harmony. There doesn’t necessarily have to be established and defined laws for there to be a crime.
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Aug 5, 2023 | 
theguardian.com | Ben Okri
Earth CriesWords for the day. Denial. Justice. RightTo protest. And Earth cries. O when will we wake up? Gulf Stream dying. Day’s end approaching. Climate migrants. Oil spills. Global boiling. CarbonEmissions. Net zero. Fossil fuel nightmare. Wandering rage of the world,Trying to find a home. Who will give this crisisHanging over us a voiceThat can open the heartsAnd minds of the people? Disasters coming. No amountOf hiding can hide it. The young crave truth. Only truth will save us.
