Ben Okri

Our past obscures our future, Lao thought, grimly. We travel forwards, but live backwards. Travelling is no escape; only the panorama changes. We are stuck in ourselves. There is no escape, but maybe there can be a change of direction. Maybe true travel is not the transportation of the body, but a change of perception, renewing the mind.

When we travel we take our troubles for a walk.

We arrive at our destination before we arrive at our revelation.’

There’s wisdom in repetition, in going to the same place often, seeing the same painting again and again, re-reading a much loved book.’

‘Most people would say repetition is boring.’

‘The young maybe.’

when Omovo was much younger it was his father who had kindled his interest in art, and he liked going over his work alone.

Omovo was seized with a strange bitter feeling. And then he experienced a sensation of ‘déjà vu’.

‘It’s a ritual murder.’

that harsh but soft tone of hers, she was talking and laughing with a man in a wrapper. Nothing was clear.

The night moved from peace to terror. Keme was very hurt. I have never seen him like that before. Dele is to be an unwilling father; he made a remark about Africa killing her young ones. Poor mutilated girl – why did they do this to you? Sacrifice to an African night? What can I or anybody do? Hide? Be anonymous? It’s lousy.

had never been able to come to terms with the forbidden sight, the serious stain of that night. Whenever he witnessed an act of terror, he always became that little boy who watched helplessly.

Omovo thought about his father, whom he loved in his silent kind of way. But Omovo also felt sorry, and at the same time not at all sorry, for the man. He saw his father as a failure. But he admired him a little for making a bold show of maintaining whatever dignity he could: to fail was not a crime.