Ted Conover recently came to Old Dominion University to participate in this year’s Literary Festival. His most recent work, The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today, touches on different struggles, lives, and victories that exist in the world today. All the while, we are able to make more of a connection with our own everyday lives.
Conover debates that while roads are vital to making life run more smoothly and are highly beneficial, they are also destroying the environment. This issue is like a tug of war. I’ll admit, I would be lost without the luxury interstates when traveling long distances, but I also greatly care about the environment. Does that make me a hypocrite? This battle is always present in my mind as I drive, so I can easily relate to the topics of this book.
The Routes of Man takes the reader to interesting locations, such as East Africa, China, Nigeria and India. It’s almost like the reader is sitting shotgun along with Conover as he experiences the many roads and pathways this world has to offer. He successfully makes the reader experiences these situations first hand. Case and point: While Conover was traveling to Uganda, he tries to work out the issue of the roads there. The roads aided to the spread of AIDS in the area because of the easy access between different locations. At the same time, those very roads can take someone to the hospital if needed. Debates such as this really encourage the reader to form their own opinions of difficult topics.
Another author that was fortunate enough to make it to ODU’s literary festival was Wilbert Rideau. Rideau was at one point a death row inmate and since his trial and release after 44 years behind bars, he has written an autobiography about his time in Louisiana State Penitentiary. In his book, In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance, Rideau tells of all the hardships that took place in the prison, including violence, rape, cruelty, and sexual slavery. He became the editor of the prison’s newspaper and worked hard on his writing craft. His writings exposed the utter cruelty that occurred at his prison.
His perspective of the justice system comes from a someone that was facing the death penalty and worked his way up the system, gaining respect from those in charge. When asked what took so long for Rideau to be finally released, he responded with, "Because they made me a political football. And whenever that happens, it's difficult for any prisoner to get out … the only reason I got the help I got was because I was high-profile and won awards. Otherwise, I would have been just like a lot of the other guys: alone, trying to deal with the system." This book is definitely proof that no matter how permanent a situation looks, it can always change for the better.
The Literary Festival at Old Dominion University offered students, faculty, and lovers of literature an opportunity to hear first hand from a variety of different authors. Each author came from a different background, school, and each took a different path to reach success in the literary world. Monarchs were fortunate enough to have those many paths meet, if only for a moment, on the campus of ODU.
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