Ben Okri
Poet and novelist Ben Okri was born in 1959 in Minna, northern Nigeria, to an Igbo mother and Urhobo father. He grew up in London before returning to Nigeria with his family in 1968. Much of his early fiction explores the political violence that he witnessed at first hand during the civil war in Nigeria. He left the country when a grant from the Nigerian government enabled him to read Comparative Literature at Essex University in England. He was poetry editor for West Africa magazine between 1983 and 1986 and broadcast regularly for the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985. He was appointed Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College Cambridge in 1991, a post he held until 1993. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1987, and was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Westminster (1997) and Essex (2002). His first two novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within (1981), are both set in Nigeria and feature as central characters two young men struggling to make sense of the disintegration and chaos happening in both their family and country. The two collections of stories that followed, Incidents at the Shrine (1986) and Stars of the New Curfew (1988), are set in Lagos and London. In 1991 Okri was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road (1991). Set in a Nigerian village, this is the first in a trilogy of novels which tell the story of Azaro, a spirit child. Azaro's narrative is continued in Songs of Enchantment (1993) and Infinite Riches (1998). Other recent fiction includes Astonishing the Gods (1995) and Dangerous Love (1996), which was awarded the Premio Palmi (Italy) in 2000. His latest novels are In Arcadia (2002) and Starbook (2007). A collection of poems, An African Elegy, was published in 1992, and an epic poem, Mental Flight, in 1999. A collection of essays, A Way of Being Free, was published in 1997. Ben Okri is also the author of a play, In Exilus. In his latest book, Tales of Freedom (2009), Okri brings together poetry and story. Ben Okri is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN, a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre, and was awarded an OBE in 2001. He lives in London.
29 Books Written
"A single line can lead the mind to terraces of contemplation. Naturally it depends on the line and the view." Newly reissued, this is a collection of exquisitely crafted essays on themes as diverse as childhood and creativity, beauty, censorship, art and politics. They are responses to the world and the times we live in. They ask unsettling questions. They provoke thoughts and they make us dream.
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • A modern classic that reveals the tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits. • "A dazzling achievement for any writer in any language." — The New York Times Book ReviewIn the decade since it won the Booker Prize, Ben Okri's Famished Road has become a classic. Like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, it combines brilliant narrative technique with a fresh vision to create an essential work of world literature.The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself and the tale he tells is full of sadness and tragedy, but inexplicably he is born with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected. But in their efforts to save their child, Azaro's loving parents are made destitute.
From the Booker prize-winning author of The Famished Road comes this bewitching novel. It is a modern fable about the relationship between love, suffering and creativity. Set on an enchanted island, Astonishing the Gods is shot through with the gentle magic of Ben Okri's imaginative prose.
This novel takes us on a journey, a magical, and a literal one. A tightly knit group of filmmakers travel from Paris together to make a documentary. Unknown to themselves they carry a lot of unwanted baggage - fear, anger, jealousy, love.When they arrive in an idyllic Swiss village ringed by mountains and reflected in a lake, they discover a haunted world that will compel them to confront the demons they have been trying to escape.A mind-blowingly beautiful book, full of unexpected, poetic and metaphysical revelations.
Myth and naturalism are combined in the story of Azaro, the spirit-child who lives in an impoverished African village, and the upheavals that he and his family face
An impassioned plea for freedom and justice, set in a world uncomfortably like our own, by the Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri.In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the Prisoner?When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization that to find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question.Karnak’s search leads him into a terrifying world of deception, oppression, and fear at the heart of which lies the prison. Then Karnak discovers that he is not the only one looking for the truth.The Freedom Artist is an impassioned plea for justice and a penetrating examination of how freedom is threatened in a post-truth society. In Ben Okri’s most significant novel since the Booker Prize–winning The Famished Road, he delivers a powerful and haunting call to arms.
An epic of daily life, Dangerous Love is Ben Okri's most accessible and most disarming novel yet. It is a story of doomed love, of star-crossed lovers, separated not by their families, but by the very circumstances of their lives.
Starbook tells the tale of a prince and a maiden in a mythical land where a golden age is ending. Their fragile story considers the important questions we all face, exploring creativity, wisdom, suffering and transcendence in a time when imagination still ruled the world.
Is what you see all there is? Look again. Playful, frightening, even shocking – the stories in this collection blur the lines between illusion and reality . This is a writer at the height of his power, making the reader think, making them laugh, and sometimes making them want to look away while holding their gaze. Stories here are set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, in a printer's shop in Spain. The characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a man in a cave, a man in a mirror, two little boys, a prison door, and the author himself. There are twenty-three stories in all. Each one will make you wonder if what you see in the world is all there is...
This is a startling novel about different kinds of riches and different forms of power. It opens another chapter in the adventures of Azaro, the celebrated spirit-child of The Famished Road , winner of the Booker Prize. By turns thunderous and tender, it will resonate in the mind and heart of the reader for a long time.
This collection of short stories is set in Nigeria and reflects the mad, exotic and often dangerous chaos which reigns there. They include jumbled up voodoo stories, stories of shanty towns and of men from the villages seeking their fortunes in the streets and filthy gutters of the new towns.
A group of angry and ill-assorted people accept an invitation to make a journey. Inspired by a painting and financed by a mysterious benefactor, they set off to discover the real Arcadia. Or what remains of it. Their journey begins in ignorance and chaos at Waterloo station and takes them through superstition and myth to harmony. In the Louvre, in front of Poussin's masterpiece, they begin to understand. 'In Arcadia takes that staple Shakespearean theme of appearance versus reality and uses it to explore the notion of paradise' Scotsman
In this inspirational volume, the Booker Prize-winning author of THE FAMISHED ROAD makes essays into an art form. The ten pieces in this beautifully crafted collection range from the personal to the analytical, including a meditation on the role of the poet, a study of Picasso's Minotaur, a paean to human freedom in honour of Salman Rushdie, and an appraisal of fellow-Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. Lyrical, imaginative and provocative, A Way Of Being Free confirms Ben Okri's status as one of the most inspiring of contempory writers.
Mangoshi lives with her parents in a village near the forest. When her mother becomes ill, Mangoshi knows only one thing can help her – a special flower that grows deep in the forest.The little girl needs all her courage when she sets out alone to find and bring back the flower, and all her kindness to overpower the dangers she encounters on the quest.
In this modern fable with the impish magic of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a masked ball makes two upper-class British couples see each other in a new light. A wise, enchanting novel about love, power, and our many selves—past and future, public and private—from the Booker Prize–winning author.There are organizations for people who grieve, for alcoholics and other kinds of addicts. But if you’ve been devastated by the love of your life walking out on you, where the hell do you go?On the 20th anniversary of the day her first husband left her, Viv decides to host an unconventional party for those burned by love. She successfully ropes in her reluctant second husband, Alan, and their friends Beatrice and Stephen, and when she meets the famed fortuneteller Madame Sosostris—last seen in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, and rumored to be the secret to success of 5 prime ministers—she believes she’s found the perfect act to headline her masquerade.In a sacred wood in the south of France, the partygoers disguise themselves and wait eagerly for the great clairvoyant, who might be able to mend their broken pasts and brighten their futures. But the night soon goes awry, in a comically revealing way that causes our couples to question their relationships and the direction of their lives.
The moment before the world changed and innocence was lost – Ben Okri's breathtaking novel about life in the time immediately before the arrival of the Atlantic slavers restores the full vibrancy of a lost history to his Nigerian homeland.Two lovers meet for the first time. One is the son of a King, struggling to find his place in the world, the other is the gifted daughter of a master craftsman from a famous but secretive tribe. The young people meet accidentally, just for a moment, by the river. They vow to meet again. When the girl fails to show up at the arranged time, the Prince begins a search for her that takes him into the heart of the secretive tribe, and gives his own enemies the chance they have been hoping for to destroy him.Mysterious ships are glimpsed, like ghosts, on the horizon, hidden in bays, glanced between trees in the forest. A white wind begins to blow through the world. And with it, things begin to disappear, song, stories, sculptures, and finally people.The book was previously published as Starbook in 2008. It has been substantially rewritten. The first reception of the book did not reference the slavery aspects or saw them as allegorical. This re-publishing is a chance to put that right in the light of contemporary acknowledgement of historical and current injustices.'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali Smith'Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' Marlon James on The Freedom Artist
An epic poem touching on issues of racism, intolerance and environmental destructions from Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri.There is much to celebrate in the human journey so far – art in all its forms, advances made in the fields of technology and medicine and, for many of us, the miracle of freedom. But there is also much to regret – racism, intolerance, the destruction of our environment, the reality and the legacy of slavery.In this long, sustained consideration of the state we find ourselves in, Ben Okri invokes the past to explain the present, and sings out a message of hope. The future is still ours to make. This epic poem, an anthem for the twenty-first century, first appeared in The Times in January 1999. Its message could hardly be more relevant to our present condition.Discover this revised edition of an inspiring and extraordinarily tender work.'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali Smith
Tales of Freedom offers a haunting necklace of images which flash and sparkle as the light shines on them. Quick and stimulating to read, but slowly burning in the memory, they offer a different, more transcendent way of looking at our extreme, gritty world.
Incidents at the Shrine is the first collection of stories by the author of 1991 Booker Prize-winning novel, The Famished Road. Whether the subject is a child's eye view of the Nigerian Civil War, Lagos and the spirit world or dispossession in a decaying British inner city, Okri's lyrical, poetic and humorous prose recreates the known and the unknown world with startling power.
'Both a work of lyrical imagination and a warning about the dangers we will face unless we take immediate action' New Yorker 'An artist's ardent plea for change' Kirkus This earth that we love is in grave danger because of us. Forests are becoming legends, rare as unicorns...If we continue to live as we do now, there will be no world left for us to fix, Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri argues in this evocative collection. He imagines messages – sent to us from beyond the end, from those who saw it coming – exhorting us to change now.Combining fiction, essay and poetry, Tiger Work displays Okri's classic blend of storytelling, fantasy and magic.
A powerful collection of new and recently completed poems by Ben Okri covering topics of the day, such as the refugee crisis, racism, Obama, the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Corona outbreak.In our times of crisis The mind has its powersThis book brings together many of Ben Okri's most acclaimed and politically charged poems.Some of them, like 'Grenfell Tower, June 2017', are already familiar. Published in the Financial Times less than ten days after the fire, it was played more than 6 million times on Channel 4's Facebook page, and was retweeted by thousands on Twitter.'Notre-Dame is Telling Us Something' was first read on BBC Radio 4, in the aftermath of the cathedral's near destruction. It spoke eloquently of the despair that was felt around the world.In 'shaved head poem', Ben Okri wrote of the confusion and anxiety felt as the world grappled with a health crisis unprecedented in our times.'Breathing the Light' was his response to the events of summer 2020, when a black man died beneath the knee of a white policeman, a tragedy sparking a movement for change.These poems, and others including poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa, Barack Obama, Amnesty and more, make this a uniquely powerful collection that blends anger and tenderness with Ben Okri's inimitable vision.
As acclaimed for his poetic vision as for the beauty of his language, in these poems Okri captures bot the tenderness and the fragility, as well as the depths and the often hidden directions of our lives. To him, the 'wild' is an alternative to the familiar, where energy meets freedom, where art meets the elemental, where chaos can be honed. The wild is our link to the stars...Ranging across a wide variety of subjects, from the autobiographical to the philosophical, from war t love, from nature to the difficulty of truly seeing, these poems reconfigure the human condition, in unusual light, through their mastery of tone and condensed brilliance.
A collection of poems reflecting Okri's concerns about Africa's colossal economic and political problems.
This text contains two inspirational essays from the author of "The Famished Road", on the meaning of language and its power to shape our lives. The work presents an alternative spiritual response to the problems of the present day.
Twenty-five stories, twenty-five paintings, five years to write, ten years to paint. This is an extraordinary collaboration between artist and the Booker Prize-winning writer Ben Okri and the painter Rosemary Clunie. Together they have created a world, and peopled it with dreams. Twenty-five fairy tales for adults, these narratives are a response to our times, informed by our world but not limited by it, imaginative, enchanting, haunting – both prescient and prophetic. Twenty-five original paintings, beautiful, playful, intimate, dreamlike, these works pull you in to a land of colour and vision. Who can say which came first, the word or image, when both grew together out of a long friendship and a creative symbiosis. What if Calvino and Magritte had combined inspiration? What if we could see our world again with a child's eyes? What if there really is a magic lamp?
In the hustle of Lagos, a series of disturbing events strip the young Jeffia Okwe of his innocence and reveal the ruthlessness of his own father. The tragic climax of the tale leaves Jeffia cleansed of the sins of his father, ready for adult life and optimistic about the future.
Packed with ideas and inspiration, The Mystery Feast offers numerous pathways into the magical world of storytelling. Beginning with a poem, ‘All we do’, Booker prize-winning novelist Ben Okri presents his considered thoughts on the purpose and meaning of stories, concluding with a series of condensed ‘Notes to the modern storyteller’. The collection is completed with a ‘stoku’ – a brief tale on the theme. Based on decades of honing his art, this stimulating booklet gives a glimpse into the mind of a master of contemporary storytelling.
This significant title story 'The Comic Destiny' forms the centrepiece of this collection, complemented by thirteen magical stokus. In his new introduction Ben Okri describes it as a talisman, an alchemic instigator for much of his later work. The stoku is a blend of story and haiku. And thirteen, according to the author, is the number of liberation. All these stories are about freedom. They flow easily, but burn slowly. And they offer the possibility of freedom beyond the confines of our usual perception. 'Moments of genuine insight and poetry' Guardian . 'Okri's writing has a light-as-air elegance, yet its seriousness keeps the stories gravity bound' New Statesman .
In Rise Like Lions, Booker Prize winning writer Ben Okri has compiled a collection of poems that celebrate the many voices of politics, from polemics and rallying cries to lyrics and meditations. Many of these poems have resonated with readers over lifetimes and through generations, from William Blake to Marvin Gaye. In exploring the impact political poems have on ideas, vision, protest, change and truth, Okri demonstrates how the need for this strand of poetry is as great as it has ever been, and its inspiration just as powerful.