African writers have written in diverse forms, styles and in many languages. They have been able to creatively put words about their lives, experiences, culture, history and myth together in books published widely on the African continent and beyond.
Many of these books consists sentences that impart divine influence on the mind and soul. eelive.ng is only glad to explore them with you.
This week’s quote examines one of the masterpieces of one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions, Ben Okri. The quote is an extract from one of his Novels, “The Famished Road”.
It says:
“This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.”
Ben Okri/The Famished Road
At a particular phase of our lives, we will all face challenges, life will drag is down But the best thing to do is to face these challenges confidently. If someone lives such a charmed life that they never have to face adversity, they should consider themselves an exceptional unicorn. The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead. While some people struggle to overcome challenges, others seem to meet them with confidence. Be like others, grow wherever life puts you down.
The Famished Road is the first book in a trilogy that continues with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches. The book was Published in London in 1991 by Jonathan Cape. The story of the novel follows Azaro, an abiku or spirit child, living in an unnamed, most likely Nigerian, city. The novel employs a unique narrative style incorporating the spirit world with the “real” world in what some have classified as Animist Realism. Others have labeled it African Traditional Religion realism. Still others choose to simply call the novel fantasy literature. The book exploits the belief in the coexistence of the spiritual and material worlds that is a defining aspect of traditional African life.
Ben Okri is a Nigerian poet and novelist. His unique style of writing earned him comparisons to great writers such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. Okri’s success as a writer began when he published his first novel Flowers and Shadows, at the age of 21. He then proceeded to serve West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, he nerve stopped writing throughout this period. His many published books have earned him several awards both locally and internationally.
Okri’s work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern, some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he often is described as one of Africa’s leading writers.