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Aminatta Forna

Aminatta Forna Biography

Writer

Aminatta Forna is a British author of Sierra Leonean origin, renowned for her fiction and non-fiction works that explore themes of identity, memory, and the African diaspora. Born in 1964, she has penned several novels and essays that reflect her own experiences as a woman of African descent living in the UK.

Aminatta Forna is a British author of Sierra Leonean origin, renowned for her fiction and non-fiction works that explore themes of identity, memory, and the African diaspora. Born in 1964, she has penned several novels and essays that reflect her own experiences as a woman of African descent living in the UK.

Related Quotes

“I knew when not to speak, when not to let myself be heard. Silence was my friend, my twin, the other half of me. Silence was my weapon. Not a blustering gun, but an invisible spider’s web.”

Book:Ancestor Stones

Source: Ancestor Stones

“I learned what it was like to lose yourself. To feel the fragments flying off you. As if your soul has unhitched itself from your body and is flying away on a piece of string like a balloon. Lost in the clouds. You think, I only have to catch the end of the string. But though it hovers within sight, you cannot grasp it. You try and try. And then there comes a time when you are too tired. You no longer care. So you say: Let it go. Let me just fall down here on the soft grass and go to sleep.”

Soul Self Change

Book:Ancestor Stones

Source: Ancestor Stones

“Something happened here. A change. Stealthy, creeping, slow. Like the way the desert is gradually covering the plain, one grain of sand at a time. It took place without us even noticing, so that the moment when we might have resisted passed unremarked.”

Book:Ancestor Stones

Source: Ancestor Stones

“He knows nothing about how this will all end, except that it will surely end. He tries to imagine himself into a future, somewhere past this point, but he cannot. There is nothing to do but to keep on existing, in this exact time and place. This is what hell must be like. Waiting without knowing. Not hell, but purgatory. Worse than hell.”

Book:The Memory of Love

Source: The Memory of Love

“So, where does it come from, the fury? A thousand indignities, a thousand wrongs, like tiny knife wounds, shredding a person’s humanity. In time only the tattered remnants are left. And in the end they ask themselves — what good is this to me? And they throw the last of it away.”

Humanity Dignity Anger

Book:Ancestor Stones

Source: Ancestor Stones

“A dread filled me, a dread unlike any I had ever felt. Not the terror of God, or his angels, but the sickly fear of man.”

Book:Ancestor Stones

Source: Ancestor Stones

“Adrian's tone suggested that the desire for something was all it took. They all live with endless possibilities, leave their homes for the sake of something new. But the dream is woven from the fabric of freedom. For desire to exist it requires the element of possibility, and that for Kai has never existed, until now...”

Desire Hope Dreams Possibility

Book:The Memory of Love

Source: The Memory of Love

“Yet what use against the deceit of a state are the memories of a child?”

Childhood Memory Childhood Memories State Repression

Author:Aminatta Forna

“A life, a history, whole patterns of existence altered, simply by doing nothing. The silent lie. The act of omission.”

Silence Doing Nothing

Book:The Memory of Love

Source: The Memory of Love

“How differently we behave in other peoples countries ... no sooner than we think we can get away with it, we do as we please. It doesn't require the breakdown of a social order. It takes a six-hour plane flight.”

Behavior Dishonor Breakdown Of Society

Book:The Memory of Love

Source: The Memory of Love

“My name is Attila.’ ah-til-ha. ‘That’s an unusual name,’ Jean said. ‘to whom?’ replied Attila cheerfully. ‘Well . . . everyone,’ said Jean. ‘not to the Hungarians or the Turks,’ said Attila. ‘your parents named you after Attila the Hun?’ Attila smiled. ‘Some people,’ he said, ‘name their baby girls Victoria.”

Names Namesake Introductions

Book:Happiness

Source: Happiness

“Jean wondered how it might be to go out into the night and howl for sex. The clarity of purpose was appealing. No games.”

Foxes Mating Rituals

Book:Happiness

Source: Happiness

“Writers do not write about places, they write about people who happen to live in those places. This is something that the labellers and their labels don’t understand either.”

World Literature

Author:Aminatta Forna

“What ultimately happened is that my country had a war. I think it would be extraordinary, as a writer, not to want to write about that.”

Thinking Want Writing War Country Would Be Happened Extraordinary

Author:Aminatta Forna

“I was brought up in a household where you stood up to be counted.”

Household Stood Up

Author:Aminatta Forna

“Jung Chang was the first person to tell a grand historical, political story through a personal narrative.”

Firsts Persons Stories Political Historical Narrative First Person Jung Historical Political

Author:Aminatta Forna

“The Watch is a powerful tale, courageous both in concept and creation: an ancient tale made modern, passed through different narrators in extraordinary shape-shifting prose that makes this not just an important novel, but a remarkable read.”

Made Important Different Powerful Watches Novel Modern Creation Shapes Concepts Extraordinary Ancient Tales Prose Remarkable Courageous Shifting Narrators

Author:Aminatta Forna

“If you want to know a country, read its writers.”

Ifs Knows Want Country

Author:Aminatta Forna

“All liars ... lie to protect themselves, to shield their egos from the raw pain of truth.”

Pain Lying Protect Ego Liars Shields

Author:Aminatta Forna

“War had the effect of encouraging people to try to stay alive. Poverty, too. Survival was simply too hard-won to be given up lightly.”

People Trying War Hard Given Poverty Alive Effects Survival Given Up Staying Alive

Author:Aminatta Forna

About the Author

Born: 1964
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 20

Related Topics

Change Country Extraordinary Silence Want War Alive Ancient Anger Behavior

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Ancestor StonesRelated source material

The Memory of LoveRelated source material

HappinessRelated source material

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