We must be careful. Our lives are changing. Our gods are silent. Our ancestors are silent. A great something is going to come from the sky and change the face of the earth. We must take an interest in politics. We must become spies on behalf of human justice. Human beings are dreaming of wiping out their fellow human beings from this earth. Rats and frogs understand their destiny. Why not man, eh?

--Ben Okri

Ben Okri was born in 1959 in Lagos, Nigeria. He attended Urhobo College, Warri, for a few years and later continued his education privately in Lagos. Okri claims that his childhood has significantly influenced his writing, yet he has not shared many details about his childhood because he believes that it is best explored in his fiction. Instead of providing autobiographical details, Okri prefers to talk about how reading has influenced his writing. He started by reading African, classical, and European myths, and he continued reading from his father's library of the Western classics. Noting many strong similarities between these diverse cultural traditions, Okri developed a world view that combines African and European traditions. His reading also inspired him to begin writing stories and essays while he was still in secondary school. Later, he failed to get a place at a Nigerian university, so he took a job at a paint store and started publishing his writing in Nigerian women's journals and evening papers. By the time he turned eighteen, he had completed his first novel, Flowers and Shadows, and moved to England where he attended the University of Essex. He continues to live, read, and write in London.

http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~rbb0/academic/projects/okri/life.html

Saul's booklist

i've been meaning to take the time to compose a booklist for the many people that ask all the time what i'm reading or what books i might suggest. now, firstly, i am just a young kid that walks through bookstores and picks things at random realizing that there is no such thing as random. i prefer used bookstores because i imagine that those books store the energy of those who have read them and that itself can serve as a link to the content beyond the content (forgive me, i'm sounding philosophical today). secondly, my personal preference is usually fiction. i believe that good fiction writers do as much research as nonfiction writers, yet do not assert themselves as being capable of rendering a topic objectively. thus, they employ their imagination and intuition and encourage us to employ ours in reaching beyond the facts ("...matter is fact, so spirit must be fiction...metafiction"). so, here's a list of a few books that come to mind here in madison, wisconsin's howard johnson hotel. some of these books were read recently and other's years ago. these are basically the books that first come to mind. when i get home i'll look through shelves and see what books i like that i haven't remembered. anyway, i am very impressionable and some of these books have actually changed my life. this list is primarily books that i've read that have had some effect on me. this is not necessarily a "suggested reading" list. like i said, i choose to pay attention to the books that come up in my own personal experiences and perhaps you should do the same. i don't believe in mere coincidence (celestine prophecy). i like to put myself in the right place to receive what i desire. like one birthday of mine i wished that i had a good book to read so i went to my favorite bookstore, in ny at the time, and walked the aisles, and when terra nostra by carlos fuentes fell off the shelf i opened to that so-called "random" page, read, and knew that i had been gifted.

-autobiography of malcolm x
-autobiography of assata shakur
-the famished road by ben okri
-songs of enchantment by ben okri
-infinite riches by ben okri
-astonishing the gods by ben okri
-and all of his poetry books
-temple of my familiar by alice walker (my favorite book on relationships)
-everything by octavia butler (science fiction...read inside covers to find the right sequence)
-the fountainhead by ayn rand
-atlas shrugged by ayn rand
-the man who cried i am by john williams
-shark dialogues by kiana davenport
-song of the exile by kiana davenport
-siddhartha by herman hesse
-illusions: notebook of a reluctant messiah by richard bach
-conversations with god parts 1, 2, and 3
-celestine prophecy-call of shambala by james redfield
-mr. god this is anna by fynn
-zami by audre lourde
-everything by toni morrison (although i had a bit of difficulty with the last two)
-the hyperion series by dan simmons (science fiction)
-the neveryona series by samuel delany (science fiction)
-the gift by hafiz and anything else you can get your hands on (poetry)
-the essential writings of rumi (poetry)
-civilization or barbarism by cheik anta diop (history)
-cranial guitar by bob kaufman and whatever else you can find (poetry)
-everything by sylvia plath (poetry/fiction)
-birthday letters by ted hughes (poetry)
-paul robeson speaks
-autobiography of miles davis
-my soul to keep by tanarive due
-the living blood by tanarive due
-everything by zora neale hurston
-two thousand seasons by ayi kwe armah
-the healers by ayi kwe armah
-a question of power by bessie head
-poisonwood bible by barbara kingsolver (yep. oprah's booklist)
-a soldier of the great war by mark helprin
-cosmicomics by italo calvino
-terra nostra by CARLOS FUENTES
-be here now by ram dass
-it's here now (are you?) by bhagavan das
-the writings of krishna murti
-the tao te ching by lao tsu (i prefer the stephen mitchell translation)
-the fifth sacred thing by starhawk
-the complete poems of anne sexton.

http://www.americanrecordings.com/saulwilliams/frameset.html

cosmica, sábado, julio 06 2002, 6:38 AM
que curioso...

yo escribo compulsivamente un montón de boludeces para intentar comunicarme con uds, y a uds ni les interesa... bueno, la verdad sea dicha, a mí tampoco me interesan las boludeces que se escriben acá!!
mauri, te hablé seriamente hace unos días y te invité a pasar unos días de tus vacaciones acá... qué decidiste? decidiste? porque si pensás que el objetivo de tu vida es disfrutarla, tendrías que ponerte las pilas en conseguir lo que querés!
* te sugiero un libro para desenchufarte de tu routine y poner un poco más de confusión a tu vida de tierno adolescente. se llama "el mundo de sofía", y es una novela de misterio: una chica, sofía (que curioso, no?), está por cumplir 15 años, y empieza a recibir por correo una serie de sobres de alguien que ella no conoce, que le cuenta la historia del pensamiento: la filosofía. por qué se lo cuenta a ella? its a mistery that u must resolve!
*escribí cuando se te de la gana, acá no tenés que darle explicaciones a nadie !

http://braders.antville.org/20020706/85711/

Alrighty then I read for a living people...or at least that is what I want to do and I read a lot so I thought why not share some of the books I read with other people, so here goes.
Kiss the Girls by Patterson. This was suggested to me by Boobular. It was pretty good for the type of novel it was, mystery/suspense. It was very graphic, there was this whole scene with a snake and milk and a womens nether regions that gave me the shivers for a day. The characters are decently developed but a little stereotypical. You know tough cop, evil bad guys, plot twist ending. Don't get me wrong it's a page turner and I enjoyed it otherwise I wouldn't bother writing about it. I know this review was a little wooden but give me a break this is the first time I have done this and I read books so fast that I have already been done with this for about 4 days so I have read two other books since then. I will try to keep it a little more updated though. Comments welcome; love as always,
Yo
Posted by Yoyo Ma on Tuesday, July 02, 2002 at 18:33

http://isynk.com/yoyoma/index.asp

I know you need an time insurance, Michael Ende describes what´s the time meaning. Its opinion in fiction, otherwise We are talking that this book has became reality today, it represent that Momo is in everywhere fighting every minute trying to rescue those basic values that is in childhood and later dissapear when humans became adults. Momo don´t have a place although she lives in a place in ruins, none know where she come frome but we know for sure that she came from a place that isn´t visible for simple humans,there is where Ende brought us this fantastic story and those characters stranges characters.

Momo it's a good book that I should had read while I was in highschool, this year I decided to read it, of course I did it. It really worth it. I'd like to visit Germany this year, I'm a quite courios about life there. Unfortunatelly this year I will not able to go there, maybe next year, who knows.

Music was preformed while I was sit sorrounded by people in a simple meditation, otherwise it must had been just my imagination, a French singer accompanied by a Mexican Trumpeter and pianist had offer a concert 12 years ago in the principal auditorium in my former school, I think I was just 16 years old, I had read "La Luna" a lovely dramatic reflection poem about dead, but I didn´t know who was the author, when suddenly they started playing a sweet melody adapted with this poem. Automatically
I was captured in the Sabina´s world of poetry.

"La luna se puede tomar a cucharadas o como una capsula cada dos horas......"
Jaime Sabines.