maria, but many traumatized by the conflict are afraid to return, but not gwinnett, you, man, you know, were, i was looking after my sheep when fighters on motorbike stopped me. they saw a pen in my pocket and thought i was an informant. they blindfolded me and beat me . i lost my sheep and ever since i've been here in this camp for the time being the army base on alert after suffering major setbacks in the last few years. armed groups are now forging new alliances, finding new recruits, and hoping to establish a state of their own across west africa and the south hail. how should bipolar al jazeera the town of while m in southwest, near? ah, or one of the top stories here around is era and maternity hospital in the besieged town of mary paul has been destroyed by a russian ass strike. ah. c

ukrainian president, if not amazing, lensky says children are buried in the rebel semanski shad video from inside the building labeling the at an atrocity and urging the west to enforce and no fly zone ever. his country russia has previously denied targeting civilians keeps mer, has condemned. the attack, as one targeting innocent children, my heart is bleeding. the most unbearable casualties of the children. children are dying by the doors and now at home in their houses or in the rolls to exile. look at this image, is there the concrete in the real resolved of putting a special operation so to speak? when he does not take the lives of his angels, he kills their parents, grandparents and destroys their homes and schools. to attack children is to attack

life civilization itself. if you don't want to see these images any more, you must not look away. you are stop, put his war. now. streams of buses and cars have been taking families out of mario polk eve and several other ukrainian cities. despite the declaration of humanitarian corridors, several explosions have been heard around the capital. recent satellite pictures show movements of a russian military convoy trying to encircle. keith. moscow says that nearly 2 weeks into the war, it's military operation is quote, going to plan ukrainian official. so the defunct chin, although nuclear plant has been knocked off the power grid, raising concerns about the facilities ability to cool nuclear material. there. russia says ukrainian nationalist destroyed a substation interrupting power supply. ukraine is called for cease fire to repair the damage to stay with us. a stream is up next one,

use after or china in the u. s. sleep walking their way to war in the struggle over ukraine. here's the test for president joe biden. whitman is really trying to do is rewrite the security architecture in your personal united states. you seriously get a walk in through gum at the same time, your weekly take on us politics and society. that's the bottom line with i am from the okay to day on the street, we are going to be joined by the award winning jamaican writer, mar, loan, james. you can be part of our conversation as well via you chief. we're going to be talking about the doc scholar trilogy, his book and writing fantasy let you chat with africans in it. ah mile. and jane's welcome back to the theme is when a little while i get to see welcome. ah,

thanks for having me. it's great to be back. i can see a couple of your books in the background, your se sick. so now i am i on shot mile on that still publishes will see your work unsafe act. now it's, it's, it's not for me. did i not get cheated? by now, i don't, there is a situation where they don't get themselves. i think so, you know, i was looking at some pulling off of that some of the mix reviews that came out last week in the u. k. and one thing it's really interesting is there is still a resistance to non white writing that does, that doesn't right to the white gears. yeah. it's, i'm writing in english, but i'm not playing by the queen's rules. you know, we're doing what we do. i mean, it's bad enough that we're using this language, but we're subverting it where you think our rules, we're doing things that we're not supposed to do. we do things like not

distinguishing between the past and present tense of the verb. well, of speakers do it jamaica. and patrice speakers do it that julian pigeon speakers do it? who doesn't do it? are stodgy, british lit establishment. so there is still, there is still, i can never resist turns for literature that doesn't go out of its way to meet a certain kind of reader on their terms. well, i'm going to take us back on our audience back to august the 2015. and that was when you were long listed for the matter book, a prize and somehow miraculously agreed to physically come into our studio, washington, d. c. they end of that. so this is what i asked you. you are writing what right now? i am writing, what am i doing? i am writing. i'm trying to write a novel that plays on african mits and mythologies and engines. so i'm actually

going speaking of comics, i'm going total geek. right. is that chart required? they've got posted stuff. i have a whole room for o film. 1 because i didn't, i mean, you should do it to an extent with these novel where i can of create a sentiment, feel me than an el, chico story. have a title yet? no, it does not. oh ok. but all right, i'm working on i cannot, i know how much i have so much here. and who is a young and fresh and fan back then 7 years later they mile and 7 years later, no results. no one book to 2 books. so this kink, this geeking out that you did as has been french. let's talk about how you go about creating this different kind of african world that is fantasy full of black people that well, the 1st thing, well,

it's very easy to simply just grab facts. that's, that's not hard, it's, it's, well, it used to be harder because most of the, you know, a lot of the, the history and so on that was written about the continent was written by europeans . and right now, those really only serve no purpose that serve really as comic relief. ah, because was books are so ridiculous. i'm, but there's a lot of work, you know, present day in contemporary history and, and anthropological work. and, you know, gathering of records and gathering of those were, it's some songs and words of the greer's all that the information is there. that's not enough ad to change how i read. it says that it's, it's as a change. how i came across that information as a change. my idea that ah, history tolbert grill is of a lower standard than a history told by a historian. they're both historians. so it wasn't just develop, delving into tons of research and i did out that video. suppose her,

but it was also changing how i read that research changing how i looked at all of that changing how and you know, i perceive information and, and so on. and, and so that also was a major part of the, the research process. learning how to read differently. one of the ways that you ground yourself in the well, it should create a spine using maps, drawing magnus to you, study to draw maps. i think as the maps in the book is actually your design local everything. you then kind of to a designer, i want to show a couple of these madison and help us understand how they then go around or to well that you're writing about his maps. yeah. well actually they are my design and illustrating work. and you know, back in another life i was a designed on an illustrator. i used to do graphic design. i used to even work on sean paul's album covers. i was a lifetime ago. excuse me. ha, ha bracken,

that humble. brag. ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. ha, but the problem of course is and then that guy. yeah. when the publishing was back when i was a designer, i didn't. so am that nightmare. yeah. you know, the thing about fantasy is that it's very easy when you're writing and imagine world to feel like a tourist in your own book. and a way to get around that is to create a world that you're already living in. and the griffin able maps is a match to do this interesting thing did define you, and then it confine you and the confine is actually good because you feel as if you're bouncing against a real world. i can't just have a character go from north. the south in a weekend or more because a map says it takes 4 months after the length of the story and you know, it's, it's, so it gives me the sense that i'm writing about an actual place. so i drew some

maps that i started writing and the maps inspired to writing, but then sooner, lou, after that the writing starts in spirit maps. and there's this ongoing thing going, you know, that, that continues, but yeah, it was, it was off on talk about geeking out. that was a lot of fun to do. although i had to re teach myself photoshop and all these things, which i haven't had in years, you did a good job, congratulations. he ranked the book and designed them maps. all right, so i want you to meet professor juan j morales. he has a question for you, not hearing. what strikes me most about marlon james's work is, is how every chapter surprises us in it delivers these unexpected situations. it gives voice to overlook people. the characters are beautiful. they are tragic. and the monsters are just super scary, nightmare fodder,

and in the settings are partially built with, with all that brick faced storytelling. and it gives countless writers and readers all these new doors to open that remind us that genre, writing is literary. there's a larger cultural experience to be offered by fantasy sy fi and horror. i'm wondering, can you tell us more about your process using african languages in the dark start trilogy, while inviting a western audience to read and experienced these languages? so naturally. oh, that's a great, great question. i wanted to almost add to it what he was saying about jaundra that um, you know, john or a division service, nobody and a problem with, with john or it can define a word. but he can also have people start ranking forms of researcher, which goes against everything goes against human nature. fantasy ultimately is myth making an hour mit sir important. and we can talk about this later. well, how this came about because i felt i was missing my mythological history,

but now i am completely not answering the question. so i'm going to answer the question. i think please answer the question. yeah, yes it's, it's so i won't study. and i mean, i don't a claim that i, i know well of because i'm just starting. but the cool thing about learning a language is you learn the rules 1st. yeah. and falling to rule, when i say it's her fault, learn the rules of languages which i was going to need caught in depth in the book . but i know i wanted to use as a base in which to then you english, i learned and things like home where to place a verb if want to get that technical. um, you know, when i grew up in jamaica, there are a lot of aspects of jamaica path or that we're taught is simply inferior english. i always thought to fight at, i don't say, went, nobody went in jamaica and english. him did go. or he soon go or he can go or he won't go hell we even say he going go. and i've always thought of that as what i

was told. it's broken english. it's. yeah. except it's not at all. it's one of the, the, it's another fantastic example of something that even a slave trade couldn't kill the way in which we come to the middle and end of a sentence. the way that for us action is always active. and when i talk about slavery and i talk about atrocity is done to us, i frequently alma, the only one we frequently sneak in the present tense and doesn't necessarily mean we're living in trauma so much as temporality is a different thing for us. yeah. has present and future is a different it's, it's, it is actually different than is when i come across a lot of criticism is always that, that they didn't find a way to get in to that as well. and writing blackly what it can, i don't know why. and so it's

a different way and i think that's what i drew from you. more than did you did? i did, you just put up a memory of me spending my entire childhood, telling my dad, you have to say turn off the light dad, not off the light. it's like show him off the light aligned tie. it was always off the night and now i can, i like at this conversation to help me really appreciate the richness of language. it doesn't have to do that reaches talking, but they also turn off into a verb, le. yeah, america we, we turn done into over move, you know, don't know. yeah. and i, so the latest installment of the dark style trilogy is moon, which spider king in a sentence. tell us what it's about. and then read asa paragraph because a great to make them write a once said that best literature can be read aloud under hoots at my window. all right, which i get moon rich spider k a. what can i say while the villains of the 1st?

what gets to tell her story and man, is it different? ah, you know, if you've read black leopard, read all of you may have had some attachment to some of the characters you probably are going to regret that. i'm. so i want to read a sec very, very quick section of bo in and in this section sagal on becomes aware off her impact in the world. ah, which if you're a fan of, if you're, if read blackbird red wolf, you probably didn't even know she did this. she didn't know either until some she was told. so this is her more women come into the room as it get lighter and still more women. or perhaps i was seeing them all for the 1st time. you don't remember me, one of them say she were a band are on the eyes that her husband take away from her after you write the wrong done to me, the woman teach me how to see with my fingers, my ears and men. no. as she say, as she paint clay on my skin with grace,

you don't know me for then i was no woman so yet another. i call each of those women my sisters since then you remember us, the girls kidnapped to not caravan headed to morrow banjo. there was taken a so to see, to sell us off as wife went concubines, we were 7 and 8 that night you swooped down on the roof was the night. i know the gods didn't forget us. every woman in the room touched by the moon, which stepped forward the woman's, say, an ever woman in the room, look at me and approach the bed and surround it. they're packed the room right up to the doorway and still more was outside waiting to squeeze themselves in our girl worm through them to touch me and say they couldn't move my mother so to send me mood, which still slang through the trees. say another no plan to woman. oh dear, righting wrongs. plenty in north and south seeing moon, which she is me. thank you right on. that's beautiful. the

wealth. thank you. create the the, the now it isn't you create the kite as a sexy they. they are sensual. sexy beings and something really jumped out at me is that they all, i want to say quick height as they are gender fluid. and there is a whole back story about why and how and humor around that. and it's just a very natural evolution. now if people only know africa from 2022, then they are going to think that then you ops averting what many african countries now feel about gender fluidity. right? but what you're doing is we claim inc and africa from before colonial times. tell us more. absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and i didn't said oh, it's certainly not with black. labored to write in his,

in queer adam think i surrender a something queer, a positive. i was just following the research. and it was a research that led to all of that. you know, i remember on, you know, on facebook looked a novelist, lola, somebody asked novice dollar shannon. i'm pronouncing her name wrong. i'm pretty sure am i'm, you know, if i'm or if, if nigeria, you know, if africa would ever be ready for queerness and queer rights and so on. and she said, africa was born ready until a bunch of tv preachers told him that they weren't. and that's what i have come to realize, you know, from what i've heard from my friends who are writers. everybody knew the 2 aunts don't know the st. and is want to know that they weren't aunts and they weren't sisters. everybody knew and that while the great things that have. 6 that we have absorb another thing that survived colonialism that survived slavery. ready is the ability for black communities to absorb the other. so sit, you know,

he is the tone queer but he, oh ok where, you know he's, he's kind of miss up in the head but he's our mess up in the head. he is that we've, we've always done that, it's a very, is one that one of the very unique aspects of both african, this and blackness. and we're come from is our ability to widen community. and i didn't realize that until, you know, i did the research that there was always made space. there, there are bands of soldiers and warriors in, in, in an audio. ancient african societies will ever wanted you to again, because that's how you gain a repetition that your virgin brad will be protected, traveling with us because who's going to try anything? we don't go for that. it's, it's, it's, it's, it's been there. her that, i mean, everybody knew, you know, we're protected, virgin cargo. you called those guys. ah. and there's always been any and you've read and more. it's the 5 read is the more i phone an added an honest

a didn't go to the research looking for validation as certain, think out that didn't think i was gonna find it in the past. and that's where i found it. i have some questions for you from our audience hill watching right now and let me sot wave, wavy tay. i hope you get a movie or show deal. i would love to see his books come to night noon. tell us about new these. tell us about how dale's what's going on. send a tweet to michael the jordan. actually they're working there, you know. so michael, michael, michael's company bought their rights for years ago. of course everything was everything covered added 2 years to including this. yeah. so we're moving, we're moving, we're trying to move full speed ahead. we're trying to regain our momentum. but you know where we're already working on the script. we have some very talented people already attached to developing. the 1st of, of, you know, the 3, but yeah,

it's still, it's still in production. it's still, you know, full speed ahead of time. lines are deadlines yet, but i'm, we're getting there. all right, this, this other question, friends, furniture, we got lots, what i'm the, i'm going to share this on because this is from the new c rincon alba. i am teaching a brief history of 7 killings at n y. you want to balance previous books for a caribbean music class and i was wondering if marlin has any tips and how to engage novels in a classroom setting who, how to india. i asked me for lit teacher tips. yes. i you are creative, right? a teacher. so what i do, i think one of the things i do with novel sometimes is i tried to also link them would source material on that. if we're going to talk about bob marley that maybe

we should listen to somebody, or maybe we should also spend some time and talking about lyrics or the poetics of, you know, of reggae music. and i, and also, you know, i love using film. when i'm teaching literature that everybody should watch rockers harder, they come yes and rockers, and so on that, that what you want to do is, is i said, if you don't want to read a book, you want to smell it, you want to taste it. you wanna, you want the sun, do you want the sun to burn down on your back? nice new any new ones? yeah. yeah. you know, you just want all that sensory detail on the more sensory detail you can bring into that classroom. i think that's going to be a great class. thank you for sharing that. those love it. there's not an endorsement of bringing weed to class. i doesn't say that he said like he may have done it. i will. i would have been fired. i see my shelly farrell is a medical psychotherapist and a writer and she has

a question for you all. and he, she is, has a family child of the 18th in the caribbean, diaspora. i find the week that you are doing with we visiting and remembering mythologies and the history before this grounds here of slavery. so powerful and important mostly because as a therapist, i knew that when we cannot remember who we really are and what really lies behind the things that we do, we end up compels to repeat them. and so my question for you is, do you have a hope? what hope do you have for a while to impact your book and beyond? of course, as many people are possible buying cookies and reading. what impact to you pay a luncheon, right? have. i've got 2 answers to that. one is, i hope it encourages more people to write books like these toni morrison's as she

wrote, you know, the books she wanted to read. and i don't think one reason why it took me this long to write these books is because i never thought that these books could have been possible, even if i were to write them. and i, that's one thing. i do hope that i'm more and more people more and more writers. right. you know, rick recognized that the mythologies just lurking right behind them are rich for, you know, for their own, you know, for their own literature. and in terms of, you know, our readers, i, you know, i just, i hope that on the, the, the media was that we have that we can empower us whether it's even twitter or social media or so on that we use more because one things i've realized and you're going to realize it if you're writing a carbon novel, an african novela, native american novel, that primarily speaks in

a voice that you know was in your head is that. 6 the audience you will find an audience is always been there. ready and waiting and ready to hear you that doesn't the necessarily, the establishment is it doesn't mean necessarily the publishing industry on the stands you are so on. so the, the, the, you know, being in touch with those readers. yes. do that, read it. m a and all that becomes really, really important because when i, you know, when i, when i come across readers, there is such a they feel a sense of familiar to with the work they see, such as, as of connection that i sometimes surprised me because sometimes i go through all the sort of gatekeepers or so on to get to them and, and, and, and it makes me think sometimes that maybe i'm not writing to write things or so. and i can imagine that you're young writers out there who really do wonder if anybody wants to hear their voice and answers. yes they do. i watched

a lecture that you did a few years ago and it was a token like to so it's very prestigious connection to, to and you took about france literature. you talk about your work and, and, and lots of other fantasy literature at the time. there was, there was a moment that just cracked me out because i have, this is sort of ju heritage where i studied english literature. but i'm african. so i have this like, how do i get my african cannon and i understand english teacher at the same time i is a mismatch. and you mentioned the hoping i'm just gonna show you the picture here. and i feel like i feel like what we know currently as fantasy fiction and literature triggered you into writing the dark style trilogy. because there is not a single black brown person of color on that poster it. so now when your books are made into me, these young people, wherever they are around the world, they can have a very different vision,

a fantasy wells. yeah, because i think there is still this idea that fantasies ultimately a medieval historical novel with merlin in it. or, you know, with with witches and goblins and dragons. um, you know, a mythological history it and i love, i love merlin as much as anybody else. i am here for king arthur. i'm here for the green knight and, and i love my draggers and gardeners are my grooms fairy tales all well and good. there is something to be said though for constantly reading literature where nobody like you is in it. right? yeah, and it creates a sort of december bodied relationship to work that allen. james is a white person. i'm going to leave it there. i let me share everybody. everybody are on, on my laptop. i mean which spider king by modern james currently available. you've heard the writer, you hear where he's coming from,

the book is available right now. thank you to you ye cheap as you said, tamala, we are so inspired that makes the 2 of us phoenix time. thanks. mullin. ah, this is a region that is rapidly developing, but it's one also that is afflicted by conflict, political upheavals, some of those we talked to elsewhere, a thing that they fled after hearing that other villages had been attacked. what we do in al jazeera is tried to balance these stories, the good, the bad, the ugly, tell it as it was, and leave the people who allow us into their lives, dignity, and humanity. ask you to tell their story. bitcoin block chain crypto guaranteed disruptive technology join with me and introducing a bill to outlaw crypto currency all the way to a fair,

a financial system. it declines open source software. we can trade out or money without banks or government award winning filmmaker. thorsten hoffman looks at all sides of the complex crypto crypto p. it going look, change in the engine it on out to sierra. the important thing, if you, a walking around in beirut was not to be in the line of fire from the holiday block . we heard gunshots, i was the 1st one to flee the hot. the battle lasted 3 days and 3 nights and they went no prisoners at the control holiday in and you control the region around. and that's why it is such a bloody battle. an icon of conflict at the heart of the lebanese civil war, bay route holiday in war. how towels on al jazeera with

ah a maternity hospital destroyed in a rush, an air strike. the ukrainian president declares the attack and atrocity sang children a buried in the rubble. we once again urges the west to implement a no fly zone. ah,

a norm tina this is andrew.