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Quote by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

“Berlin of 1884 was effected through the sword and the bullet. But the night of the sword and the bullet was followed by the morning of the chalk and the blackboard. The physical violence of the battlefield was followed by the psychological violence of the classroom. But where the former was visibly brutal, the latter was visibly gentle … The bullet was the means of physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation.”

Quote by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

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Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

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“The first time someone suggested that I write about my adventures was when I had just arrived in Lebanon. He looked at me with sincere curiosity, puzzled too. We were seated in a large kitchen at a friend’s house, having lunch. It was a beautiful yellow brick house, on top of a hill, very bright, the garden in bloom, wonderful colors and my story of poverty and gloom in Kosovo couldn’t be a greater contrast. We drank lovely Lebanese white wine, ate warm flatbread with labneh, foul, sujuk, and plenty of other mezze dishes.”

“These are quite obviously the books that nobody reads,’ said Rocky, studying their titles. ‘But it’s a comfort to know that they are here if you ever should want to read them. I’m sure I should find them more entertaining than the more up-to-date ones. Wild Beasts and their Ways; Five Years with the Congo Cannibals; With Camera and Pen in Northern Nigeria; Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia. I wish people still wrote books with titles like that. Nowadays I believe it simply isn’t done to show a photograph of “The Author with his Pygmy Friends”—we have become too depressingly scientific.”

“Breakfast in a rather dingy hotel room, near the Roman ruins of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon. There are bowls of yoghurt; blue-and-white jugs of fresh mint, a basket of dimpled sheets of warm flatbread folded like delicate manuscripts, and pots of honey and fig jam. A lone brick of stale Madeira cake sits on an oval white plate. It is labelled 'English.”

“I am fine and of course I am lying remember I am Lebanese or nod ask how everyone I know is doing don’t you see that far away country my mother bursts into tears the front door resilient smoke dust the rubble has become blanket and bed warm like mine the fire is blazing the flag burnt flesh on a phone screen the demolition of war what is the definition fleeing their homes they are dying they are not crying out for help lend a hand hold a heart for being arab I am not brave”