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Informationen zum Autor Ben Okri is a playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, anthologist, and aphorist. He has also written film scripts. His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction. His books include the eco-fable Every Leaf a Hallelujah , the play Changing Destiny , the genre-bending climate fiction Tiger Work , the poetry collections A Fire in My Head and Mental Fight , and the novels Astonishing the Gods , The Last Gift of the Master Artists , and Dangerous Love . In 2023 he received a knighthood for services to literature. Klappentext "First published in the UK in 2021 by Head of Zeus Ltd." Leseprobe AFRICA IS A REALITY NOT SEEN africa is a reality not seen a dream not understood its wars are the scab of a wound its famine the cracking of seeds its dictatorships a child torturing beetles in a field. its soul’s older than atlantis and like all things old, it’s being reborn, and doesn’t know it. countless cycles of civilisation and destruction are lost in its memory but not in its myths. africa is a living enigma an old woman taken for a child a wise man taken for a fool a beggar who is also a great king. ON RACE ignorance thinks there’s black and white ignorance thinks there’s them and us ignorance thinks of outsiders and insiders ignorance thinks about skin and not heart ignorance thinks one race is better than another ignorance thinks people should be kept apart ignorance thinks nothing unites us all ignorance fears the foreign and unknown ignorance is the soul of cowardice and fear ignorance speaks and darkness forms in the air ignorance will destroy this world with hate wisdom with light will change that fate Zusammenfassung From the renowned Booker Prize–winning author, a powerful collection of poems covering topics of the day, such as the refugee crisis, Black Lives Matter protests, and COVID-19. In our times of crisis The mind has its powers This book brings together many of Ben Okri’s most acclaimed and politically charged poems. “Grenfell Tower, June 2017” was published in the Financial Times less than ten days after the fire, and Okri’s reading of it was played more than six million times on Facebook. “Notre-Dame Is Telling Us Something” was first read on BBC Radio 4, in the aftermath of the cathedral’s near destruction. It speaks eloquently of the despair that was felt around the world. In “shaved head poem,” Okri writes of the confusion and anxiety felt as the world grappled with a health crisis unprecedented in our times. “Breathing the Light” is his response to the events of summer 2020, when a Black man died beneath the knee of a white policeman, a tragedy sparking a movement for change. These poems and others, including poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa, Barack Obama, Amnesty International, and more, make this a uniquely powerful collection that blends anger and tenderness with Okri’s inimitable vision....
