Lit Fest 2008
Enigmatic Ben Okri oozes charisma
THE charismatic Ben Okri rounded off a balmy spring evening with a blend of engaging personality and intellectual discussion.
Ben was in Swindon to launch his new novel Starbook, which he could not actually say for certain was a novel. Ben, like his novel, is an enigma.
He addressed the issues of certainty, faith and the future, and told how the story his mother never finished before she died has "haunted" him.
He argues this is the feeling that poetry evokes.
He read extracts from his poems and novel with the same spiritual, hypnotic quality, which brought them to life. As he put it: "I'm a scientist - a scientist of dreams."
The writer, who has just returned from a life-changing trip to Egypt, read some of his new work inspired by what he witnessed there.
He set up a relationship with the audience and invited them to ask him hard questions, which they duly did. The focus of Ben's work seems to be the positive, but with a hint of the darkness that lies behind it.
As he said: "My work is informed with a dark energy, but its purpose is not darkness. Light and darkness - never can they be totally separated."
10:16am Monday 12th May 2008
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