“Here's the thing: You rescue us every day in small, quiet ways, so why not in this way? Let us into your mystery, tell us how you would like to be loved, show us how to see you, really see you.” WayShowsMysteryQuietWhy NotRescue Author:Chris Abani
“I think that most writers who are trying to write important and difficult books are in many ways putting their own humanity into question. Sometimes the journey is finding out where you stand in relationship to your own humanity and to the humanity of others.” ThinkingWayWritingTryingImportantBookSometimesHumanityDifficultJourneyFindingsWhere You Stand Author:Chris Abani
“The Internet is really our meeting place. We have this amazing listserv. Every time I log onto it I feel a sense of pride, because if you log on and say, "Oh I was just in San Diego and I was in a park and I saw a lion," the flurry of replies on average is just like--wow! All these existential questions about what it means to be an African, and never having seen a lion at home, but having seen a lion here. Everything you say turns into this real philosophical debate--it's incredible in so many ways. And it's an invigorating place to be.” IfsWayFeelsMeanRealHomeTurnsSawsPrideInternetPhilosophicalMeetingsIncrediblesAverageDebateParksLionsWowExistentialInvigoratingSan Diego Author:Chris Abani
“My search is always to find ways to chronicle, to share and to document stories about people, just everyday people. Stories that offer transformation, that lean into transcendence, but that are never sentimental, that never look away from the darkest things about us.” PeopleWayLooksStoriesShareOffersTransformationEverydayDocumentsSentimentalTranscendenceChronicles Author:Chris Abani
“Unlike other books or TV shows or sometimes life, my narrative worlds are stripped of implicit moral centers. There is only what you bring. That makes the characters risky in every way and the narrative, a journey of change for the reader. But I make the journey as fun as I can.” WorldWayI CanBookSometimesCharacterShowsFunMoralJourneyTvsReaderNarrativeTv ShowsImplicitSometimes In Life Author:Chris Abani
“The truth is that History, with its imposing capital H, is simply the amalgamation of many quotidian lives lived in very ordinary ways. History is always personal. If you read Holocaust survivor or American slavery survivor narratives, you realize all too well that these great Historical moments were personal to someone at some time.” IfsWayWellsMomentsRealizingTruth IsOrdinarySlaveryHistoricalNarrativeSurvivorHolocaustImposingAmerican SlaveryHolocaust SurvivorAmalgamationGreat Historical Author:Chris Abani
“I think that those of us who are ordinary disappear easily into the backdrop of life and we take things for granted. We often wake up in our lives and wonder how we got there. But the characters I create, the people I am drawn to, are quite extraordinary (and not always in wholesome ways), and they offer us the chance to understand who we really are and how we became who we are.” PeopleThinkingWayCharacterChanceWonderOur LivesOffersOrdinaryWake UpExtraordinaryDisappearGrantedWho We AreBackdropTaking Things For Granted Author:Chris Abani
“Literature is an aspect of story and story is all that exists to make sense of reality. War is a story. Now you begin to see how powerful story is because it informs our worldview and our every action, our every justification is a story. So how can story not be truly transformative? I've seen it happen in real ways, not in sentimental ways or in the jargon of New Age liberal ideology.” WayWarRealStoriesRealityHappensAgeActionLiteraturePowerfulAspectIdeologyMake SenseJustificationSentimentalNew AgeWorldviewJargon Author:Chris Abani
“What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion. In South Africa they have a phrase called ubuntu. Ubuntu comes out of a philosophy that says, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.” WorldWayHumansPhilosophyHumanitySimpleCompassionSouthEverydaySavedInvisibleGentlePhrasesGesturesSouth AfricaAccumulationUbuntu Author:Chris Abani
