Top 12 Quotes & Sayings by Uwem Akpan

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Nigerian priest Uwem Akpan.

Last updated on December 18, 2024.

Uwem Akpan is a Nigerian writer. He is the author of Say You're One of Them (2008), a collection of five stories published by Little, Brown & Company. The book inspired Angelique Kidjo to write the song "Agbalagba". It made the Best of the Year list at People magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and other places. The New York Times made it the Editor's Choice, and Entertainment Weekly listed it at #27 in their Best of the Decade. Say You're One of Them won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Open Book Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. A New York Times and Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, it has been translated into 12 languages. It won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and was picked by the Oprah Winfrey Book Club September 17, 2009, in Central Park. Two months later, Oprah interviewed Uwem in Chicago as part of her bookclub event with Anderson Cooper giving short commentaries on some of the African countries in Uwem's book. The interview was streamed live simultaneously from Oprah.com, Facebook and CNN.

Nigerian - Priest | Born: 1971

Source: Wikipedia

I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet.

Uwem Akpan

I believe artists should be able to step into other people's situations, contexts and cultures and work from there. If artists don't have that freedom, then, as someone has said, are we all writing our autobiographies?

Uwem Akpan

Though people are more important than money, I'm not convinced these large sums of money paid out to victims is the best. Listening to the some of the victims, I think we could have avoided a lot of this if the Church had humbly apologized to them, but we tried to bully some of them. I pray the victims are healed.

Uwem Akpan

Maybe if we can find time to hug and cherish our families and the people around us, child suicide or college suicide wouldn't be rampant.

Uwem Akpan

For me, as I've said many times, the story is not research. The story is how the characters relate with each other and with the environment... I try to apply my imagination to what could have happened and how a little child could have viewed and processed the event.

Uwem Akpan

I always felt my writing could benefit from the attention of established writers. I knew my work could grow and be better.

Uwem Akpan

After the phone call from The New Yorker, I walked more than a mile to church to thank God. But then I told God I would talk to Him another time and darted home.

Uwem Akpan

I'm happy if my book makes you want to kiss your family... if we can reconcile with each other no matter where we are on the globe.

Uwem Akpan

I'd say my religious life has shaped my worldview; my writing, I'd say too, is an extension of the pulpit...it reaches folks who don't care for organized religion in a different way.

Uwem Akpan

I have been very afraid of writing about other cultures and countries. I've been worried about getting the research wrong. I ask a lot of questions. I try to visit the area. If I'm not able to do that, I search out people from that country who live elsewhere and ask questions.

Uwem Akpan

I believe that Jesus was both priest and poet. Imagine those powerful parables! My experience as a priest tells me it's not possible to reach the hearts of the congregants without a bit of poetry and storytelling.

Uwem Akpan

I don't believe in the art-for-art's-sake philosophy. With the raw material before me and the gifts within me, I did my best to celebrate the voices and intelligence and sweetness and dreams of the children in spite of their chaotic, outer worlds.

Uwem Akpan

Top 12 Quotes & Sayings by Uwem Akpan

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