This morning in the Tenda Sordello, Okey Ndibe shared with the audience the creative and intellectual development behind his writing, remarking on the connections that exist between the power of speech and the tyranny that begets silence. Ndibe’s most recent book, Arrows of Rain, was inspired by intellectuals across the spectrum of history from ancient Greece to his homeland of Nigeria, as well as by the many people who have shared their personal stories with him.

Ndibe told how, when living in Nigeria, he faced the persecutions that many forward thinking people have faced throughout history. The problem with this, according to the author, is that we live in the 21st century, and freedom of speech is no longer a revolutionary concept, but second nature, something that is often taken for granted. Okey Ndibe sheds light on the consequences of silence against the tyranny of governments in his latest novel. In his writing, Ndibe reaches out across borders and oceans to open the discussion on how not acting or speaking can harm us, or those around us, in the long run.

During this interactive event, he invited crowd members to respond with their own ideas of how and why we remain silent when speech is imperative. An eager crowd obliged the wishes of a bold author who seeks to transmit to his readers how silence and indifference have had profound effects on the world he grew up in, and his attentive audience in Mantua to “speak, even if your voice shakes.”

Ndibe took time before the event to speak with some of our volunteers about his work:

(caricamento...)