The books I have written are travel journals of places that I visited in my imagination and the characters I met there. Emma and I have flown on the back of a albatross; I have lived in a city with two suns and a moon with Nina; I have been put in a box and stared at; like Ruthie I woke up one morning to find myself changed overnight into a rabbit; I have travelled to look for the place where the sun goes to sleep at night and I have entered a computer, by entering: ENTER, of course, and nearly been gobbled up by a virus, to name but a few journeys.
I just love this quote by Ben Okri.
Reading, therefore, is a co-production between writer and reader. The simplicity of this tool is astounding. So little, yet out of it whole worlds, eras, characters, continents, people never encountered before, people you wouldn’t care to sit next to in a train, people that don’t exist, places you’ve never visited, enigmatic fates, all come to life in the mind, painted into existence by the reader’s creative powers. In this way the creativity of the writer calls up the creativity of the reader. Reading is never passive.
Ben Okri in A Way of Being Free
I have done and am doing my part with all of my heart. I love stories. I think they have wings and know no boundaries. In stories we discover our common humanity.
