Ben Okri Delivers the 13th Steve Biko Memorial Lecture: “Biko and the Tough Alchemy of Africa”
Celebrated writer Ben Okri, winner of the 1991 Booker Prize for The Famished Road, delivered the 13th Steve Biko Memorial Lecture at the University of Cape Town on Wednesday. The occasion marked the 35th anniversary of the death of Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist and Black Consciousness leader, in a Pretoria prison following sustained torture and beatings by the security police.
Okri’s five-part talk, entitled “Biko and the Tough Alchemy of Africa”, was Pan-Africanist in its spirit and content. He used the space to talk about how, living in another part of the world as an African, South Africa’s Struggle was also the background to his life. He exhorted South Africans to see themselves as a people capable of great things and to continue to inspire the world through the kind of courage and determination exhibited during the Struggle.
Okri ended the talk with the resonating words “Our future is greater than our past, bless you all.” These are words of his that are engraved in the gates of a war memorial in Hyde Park, London.
UCT has made a podcast of the lecture available online:
- Not playing? Listen at UCT Online
Rebecca Davis and Wamuwi Mbao contemplate Okri’s compelling address:
There are some writers who come across as engaging and easy in prose, but in the flesh appear stumbling, awkward and dry. Ben Okri is not one of those. Managing to rock a beret in a way Juju could only dream of, Okri utterly charmed a packed audience at UCT’s Jameson Hall on Wednesday night. A friend commented after his address: “I was eating out of his hand. And I’d give it a Michelin star.”
The Steve Biko Memorial lectures are performances of public wisdom, testimonies in tribute to Steve Biko which take place every year in commemoration of the day the Black Consciousness hero died in police custody. Previous keynote speakers have included figures like Mamphela Ramphele, Ndjabulo Ndebele, Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. These figures have all exercised public thought before an audience, speaking on subjects that reverberate through Biko’s ideas and expand the history and legacy of his role as an intellectual in society.
Book details
- I Write What I Like by Steve Biko
EAN: 9781770102408
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- The Famished Road by Ben Okri
EAN: 9780099929307
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- Dangerous Love by Ben Okri
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EAN: 9780143528265
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- Steve Biko: A Jacana Pocket Biography by Lindy Wilson
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EAN: 9781770099630
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eBook: Steve Biko: A Jacana Pocket Biography by Lindy Wilson
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eBook: Steve Biko: A Jacana Pocket Biography by Lindy Wilson
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- A Time for New Dreams by Ben Okri
EAN: 9781846042683
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Photo courtesy SLiPNet
Apr
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