had salman rushdie not found himself in the eye of a storm yet again nigerian author ben okri would not have been making so unobtrusive an entry to the jaipur literary festival the 53yearold londonbased writer who won the booker for literature in 1991 will nevertheless remain one of the more sought after figures at a festival that will feature more than 200 authors and speakers okri speaks to tois archana khare ghose on rushdie india and english writing in developing countries in a phone interviewwhats your view on salman rushdies participation controversy at the litfest ive heard about the ruckus and its very unfortunate rushdie is an old friend and i was looking forward to meeting him i dont see what the problem is literature is not a divisive force we misread too easily i hope the indian government looks into the issue in a way that helps rushdie attend the festival what are your expectations from the festival this year one thing i really want to share about india is the strange feeling i had when i first visited the country in the 1990s the minute i set foot here i had this strange sensation of being home something i havent experienced even in london i have never felt that way again as for the festival i am not sure about what would i be speaking on in the session on the afropolitans on january 23 ill have to see how it shapes up does writing from third world suffer any discrimination on world stage i dont know if there ever was a level playing field the position that a countrys authors enjoy is directly related to the strength of that nation writers from powerful nations have always enjoyed global predominance that was as true of shakespeare as it is true of authors today authors from india and different parts of the world are now getting to change the balance today tagore and narayan are more widely read than before once a book achieves a certain level of excellence it belongs to the world the nigerian civil war 196770 is an abiding feature in your writing how much did it impact you it had a profound impact on me as a child my parents were caught in the middle of civil war and it showed how cruel people can be it also showed how kind and courageous people can be the experience formed me led me to philosophy to questions of destiny god faith creation most important works of the ancient world are based on war the illiad the mahabharatap i would really like to dip into the nigerian civil war for future stories how important is a prize in the career of an author its complicated a book should be read for itself but it often happens that the way readers look at a book changes after it wins a prize almost as if they are looking for the prize