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Wikipedia

Ben Okri

March 05, 2023

Ben Okri OBE FRSL (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian-British poet and novelist.[1] Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions,[2][3] and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez.[4] In 1991, Okri won the Booker Prize with his novel The Famished Road.

Ben Okri

OBE FRSL
Born (1959-03-15) 15 March 1959 (age 63)
Minna, Nigeria
OccupationWriter
NationalityNigeria
UK
GenreFiction, essays, poetry
Literary movementPostmodernism, Postcolonialism
Notable worksThe Famished Road (1991), A Way of Being Free (1997), Starbook (2007), A Time for New Dreams (2011)
Notable awardsBooker Prize 1991
Website
benokri.co.uk

Biography

Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people; his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half-Igbo ("from a royal family").[1][5] He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959.[5] His father, Silver, moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old[3] so that he could study law.[6] Okri thus spent his earliest years in London and attended primary school in Peckham.[2] In 1966, Silver moved his family back to Nigeria,[7] where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it.[5] After attending schools in Ibadan and Ikenne, Okri began his secondary education at Urhobo College at Warri,[8][9] in 1968, when he was the youngest in his class.[7] His exposure to the Nigerian civil war[10] and a culture in which his peers at the time claimed to have seen visions of spirits,[3] later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction.

At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a short university program in physics because of his youth and lack of qualifications, Okri experienced a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling.[11] He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher.[11] He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers.[11] Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country.[3] In 1978, Okri moved back to England and went to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government.[12][11] When funding for his scholarship fell through, however, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. He describes this period as "very, very important" to his work: "I wrote and wrote in that period... If anything [the desire to write] actually intensified."[11]

Okri's success as a writer began when he published his debut novel Flowers and Shadows in 1980, at the age of 21.[1] From 1983 to 1986, he served as poetry editor of West Africa magazine,[7] and was also a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period.[1]

His reputation as an author was secured when his novel The Famished Road won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1991,[1][13] making him the youngest ever winner of the prize at the age of 32.[14] The novel was written during the three years from 1988 that Okri lived in a Notting Hill flat rented from publisher friend Margaret Busby,[15] and he has said: "Something about my writing changed round about that time. I acquired a kind of tranquillity. I had been striving for something in my tone of voice as a writer — it was there that it finally came together.... That flat is also where I wrote the short stories that became Stars of the New Curfew."[12]

Literary career

 
Quote from Ben Okri's Mental Fight on the Memorial Gates, London

Since the publication in 1980 of his first novel, Flowers and Shadows, Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he often is described as one of Africa's leading writers.[2][3] His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize,[16] along with Songs of Enchantment (1993)[17][18] and Infinite Riches (1998) make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria.[1]

Okri's work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern,[19] some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world, it is claimed, then his "allegiances are not postmodern [because] he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some, and not other, truth-claims."[19] Alternative characterisations of Okri's work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore,[20] New Ageism,[19][21] spiritual realism,[21] magical realism,[22] visionary materialism,[22] and existentialism.[23]

Against these analyses, Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism, claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that "a horse ... has four legs and a tail. That doesn't describe it."[3] He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of "dream logic,"[10] and stated that his fiction often is preoccupied with the "philosophical conundrum ... what is reality?"[11] insisting that:

"I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death ... Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality."[10]

He notes the effect of personal choices, "Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world."[24]

Okri's short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits,[1] while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity.[1][25]

In the 2001 Queen's Birthday Honours he was appointed an OBE for services to Literature.[26]

Okri was made an honorary vice-president of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre.[1] On 26 April 2012, Okri was appointed the new vice-president of the Caine Prize for African Writing, having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years prior.[27]

In April 2019, Okri gave the keynote address at the second Berlin African Book Festival, curated by Tsitsi Dangarembga.[28]

Influences

Okri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father's book shelves, as it was by literature,[11] and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams.[29] His literary influences include Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream,[10] and Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".[11] Okri's 1999 epic poem, Mental Fight, also is named after a quotation from the poet William Blake's "And did those feet ...",[30] and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri's poetry.[22]

Okri also was influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly, his mother's storytelling: "If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story."[10] His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.[10]

On the final day of the 2021 COP26 climate meeting in Glasgow, Okri wrote about the existential threat posed by the climate crisis and how ill‑equipped humans seem to be to confront the prospect of their own self-inflicted extinction. Indeed, Okri says, "[w]e have to find a new art and a new psychology to penetrate the apathy and the denial that are preventing us making the changes that are inevitable if our world is to survive."[31]

Awards and honours

Works

Novels

Poetry, essays and short story collections

  • Incidents at the Shrine (short stories; London: Heinemann, 1986)[citation needed]
  • Stars of the New Curfew (short stories; London: Secker & Warburg, 1988)[63]
  • An African Elegy (poetry; London: Jonathan Cape, 1992)[64]
  • Birds of Heaven (essays; London: Phoenix House, 1996)[65]
  • A Way of Being Free (essays; London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1997; London: Phoenix House, 1997)[66]
  • Mental Fight (poetry: London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999; London: Phoenix House, 1999)[67]
  • Tales of Freedom (short stories; London: Rider & Co., 2009)[68]
  • A Time for New Dreams (essays; London: Rider & Co., 2011)[69]
  • Wild (poetry; London: Rider & Co., 2012)[70]
  • The Mystery Feast: Thoughts on Storytelling (West Hoathly: Clairview Books, Ltd, 2015)[71]
  • The Magic Lamp: Dreams of Our Age, with paintings by Rosemary Clunie (Apollo/Head of Zeus, 2017)[72][73]
  • Rise Like Lions: Poetry for the many (as editor; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2018)[74]
  • Prayer for the Living: Stories (London: Head of Zeus, 2019)[75][76]
  • A Fire in My Head: Poems for the Dawn (London: Head of Zeus, 2021)[77][78]

Film

Online fiction

  • "A Wrinkle In The Realm". The New Yorker. 1 February 2021.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Ben Okri", British Council, Writers Directory. 2 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ^ a b c "Ben Okri", Editors, The Guardian, 22 July 2008.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Stefaan Anrys, "Interview with Booker Prize laureate Ben Okri", Mondiaal Nieuws, 26 August 2009.
  4. ^ Robert Dorsman, "Ben Okri", Poetry International Web, 2000. 16 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ^ a b c d Maya Jaggi (10 August 2007). "Free spirit". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  6. ^ Juliet Rix, "Ben Okri: My family values", The Guardian, 25 June 2010.
  7. ^ a b c Paul Frailey (28 December 2011). "Ben Okri (1959–)". BlackPast. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  8. ^ The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (11 March 2021). "Ben Okri". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  9. ^ Ben Okri profile, The Guardian.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Anita Sethi, "Ben Okri: novelist as dream weaver", TheNational, 1 September 2011.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h "Interview: Ben Okri – Booker prize-winning novelist and poet", The Scotsman, 5 March 2010.
  12. ^ a b Nicola Venning (3 August 2014). "Time and place: Ben Okri". The Sunday Times.
  13. ^ "Ben Okri: 'The Famished Road was written to give myself reasons to live'", The Guardian, 15 March 2016.
  14. ^ "Ben Okri", The Cultural Frontline, BBC World Service, 1 May 2016.
  15. ^ Davies, Paul (1 February 2023). "Video Interview | 'You do this or you die': how Ben Okri wrote The Famished Road". The Booker Prizes. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  16. ^ "The Booker Prizes Backlist | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  17. ^ "Songs of Enchantmen". Publishers Weekly. 30 August 1993. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  18. ^ "Songs of Enchantment". Kirkus Reviews. 15 July 1993. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  19. ^ a b c Douglas McCabe. "'Higher Realities': New Age Spirituality in Ben Okri's The Famished Road." Research in African Literatures, vol. 36, no. 4 (2005), 1–21.
  20. ^ Ato Quayson, Transformations in Nigerian Writing (Oxford: James Currey, 1997).
  21. ^ a b Anthony K. Appiah, "Spiritual Realism." Review of The Famished Road, by Ben Okri. The Nation, 3–10 August 1992, 146–148.
  22. ^ a b c Matthew J. A. Green, "Dreams of Freedom: Magical Realism and Visionary Materialism in Okri and Blake", Romanticism, vol. 15, no. 1 (2009), 18–32.
  23. ^ Ben Obumselu, "Ben Okri's The Famished Road: A Re-Evaluation." Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, vol. 48, no. 1 (2011), 26–38.
  24. ^ "A Thought for Today ... Ben Okri", Wordsmith.org, 15 March 2017.
  25. ^ Ben Okri, "A Time for New Dreams" 19 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine, an interview with Claire Armitstead, RSA. London, 4 April 2011.
  26. ^ "Ben Okri: A writer honoured". BBC News. 13 June 2001. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  27. ^ Katie Allen, "Okri made Caine Prize vice-president", The Bookseller, 26 April 2012.
  28. ^ "A snapshot of the African Book Festival 2019 in Berlin, Germany". James Murua's Literature Blog. 9 April 2019. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
  29. ^ Saskia Vogel, "Interview: Ben Okri", Granta Magazine, 7 April 2011.
  30. ^ Ben Okri, Mental Fight: An Anti-Spell for the 21st Century (London: Phoenix House, 1999), 1.
  31. ^ Okri, Ben (12 November 2021). "Artists must confront the climate crisis – we must write as if these are the last days". The Guardian. London, United Kingdom. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  32. ^ a b "Ben Okri | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  33. ^ "Acclaimed Author – Ben Okri". The London Nigerian - Community News and Events for Nigerians in UK. 16 September 2014. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  34. ^ Flood, Alison (13 February 2012). "Ben Okri erupts at editor over 'rewriting' claim". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  35. ^ "Creative Arts Fellowship marks 50 years". Trinity College, Cambridge. 21 September 2017. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  36. ^ "The Famished Road | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  37. ^ "Ben Okri - Literature". literature.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  38. ^ "Ben Okri". www.penguin.co.uk. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  39. ^ Aghadiuno, Eric. "Ben Okri - OnlineNigeria.com". onlinenigeria.com. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  40. ^ "UniVerse :: A United Nations of Poetry :: Ben Okri". www.universeofpoetry.org. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  41. ^ "Ben Okri features in Glo/CNN African Voices". Vanguard News. 24 June 2011. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  42. ^ "Honorary Graduates - Honorary Graduates - University of Essex". www1.essex.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  43. ^ 100 Great Black Britons 24 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine website.
  44. ^ "Ben Okri". CCCB. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  45. ^ "Novi Sad International Literature Festival - Literature Across Frontiers". www.lit-across-frontiers.org. 27 August 2014. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  46. ^ "Honorary Degree in Utopia for Ben Okri - Antwerp, Belgium 2010", Youtube, 10 March 2015.
  47. ^ "SOAS Awards Honorary Doctorate to Mr Ben Okri OBE". www.soas.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  48. ^ "South African university honours Nigerian author, Ben Okri". Vanguard News. 23 April 2014. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  49. ^ "Booker Prize-winning author in conversation for Ken Hom annual lecture - Oxford Brookes University". www.brookes.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  50. ^ Jonathan Beckman, "Twitching Fairy Penguin", Literary Review, December 2014.
  51. ^ "Bad Sex in Fiction: Ben Okri scoops 2014 prize", BBC News, 3 December 2014.
  52. ^ Okri, Ben. (1989) [1980]. Flowers and shadows. Longman. ISBN 0-582-03536-8. OCLC 1043417403.
  53. ^ "The Ben Okri Bibliography: Primary Sources". www.cerep.ulg.ac.be. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  54. ^ "Nigerian Wins British Fiction Award". The New York Times. 23 October 1991. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  55. ^ Paul Taylor (21 March 1993). "BOOK REVIEW / Dreams of a boy on earth: 'Songs of Enchantment' - Ben Okri: Cape, 14.99 pounds". The Independent.
  56. ^ "Ben Okri, Writer, Author, Nigeria Personality Profiles". www.nigeriagalleria.com. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  57. ^ "Dangerous Love". House of Zeus. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  58. ^ "Ben Okri: A Selective Bibliography". Callaloo. 38 (5): 1004–1005. 2015. doi:10.1353/cal.2015.0165. ISSN 1080-6512.
  59. ^ Hickling, Alfred (12 October 2002). "Review: In Arcadia by Ben Okri". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  60. ^ "Author Okri receives bad sex prize". BBC News. 3 December 2014. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  61. ^ Stephanie Merritt. "Book of the day | The Freedom Artist by Ben Okri review – wake-up call of a world without books". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  62. ^ Ellingham, Miles (18 December 2021). "Every Leaf a Hallelujah by Ben Okri — a plea from the forest". Financial Times. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  63. ^ Alleyne, Richard (11 February 2012). "Ben Okri 'disappointment' at editor he claims re-wrote his work". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  64. ^ mjs76. "Visiting Professor - Ben Okri OBE FRSL — University of Leicester". www2.le.ac.uk. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  65. ^ Gray, Rosemary (1 July 2018). "Ben Okri's Aphorisms: "Music on the Wings of a Soaring Bird"". Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. 7 (2): 17–24. doi:10.2478/ajis-2018-0042.
  66. ^ A Way of Being Free. Head of Zeus. 9 October 2014. ISBN 9781784081843.
  67. ^ Roy Hattersley (21 August 1999). "A man in two minds". The Guardian.
  68. ^ Daniel, Lucy (30 April 2009). "Tales of Freedom by Ben Okri: review". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  69. ^ "The Ben Okri Bibliography: On the Internet". www.cerep.ulg.ac.be. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  70. ^ Kathie Birat (2015). "'Through a Bending Light': Ben Okri's Poetic Commitment". Commonwealth Essays and Studies. 38 (1). Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  71. ^ Ben Okri (4 November 2015). "Under the Sun: a meditation by Ben Okri on stories". The Irish Times.
  72. ^ Philipa Coughlan (1 February 2019). "The Magic Lamp: Dreams of Our Age by Ben Okri". NB Magazine. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  73. ^ Rebecca swirsky (10 March 2018). "Ben Okri's The Magic Lamp is a collection of morally ambiguous tales for our trying times". New Statesman. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  74. ^ Jeff Jackson (September 2018). "Books | Rise Like Lions: Poetry for the Many". Socialist Review (438).
  75. ^ "Prayer for the Living". Head of Zeus.
  76. ^ Babi Oloko (2 February 2021). "The Immensity of Brevity: On Ben Okri's 'Prayer for the Living'". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  77. ^ Tamsin Hackett (1 July 2020). "Ben Okri's first poetry collection in eight years goes to Head of Zeus". The Bookseller.
  78. ^ Angeline Peterson (15 January 2021). "Ben Okri's First Poetry Collection in Nine Years is Out Now". Brittle Paper. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  79. ^ "N – The Madness of Reason", Blinkerfilm, 9 March 2015.

Relevant literature

  • Irene, Michael Oshoke. 2015. Re-inventing oral tradition in Ben Okri's trilogy : The Famished Road, Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches. Anglia Ruskin University, doctoral dissertation.

External links

  • Official website
  • Ben Okri's AALBC.com Author Profile
  • Ben Okri's official Facebook Page
  • Ben Okri's MySpace page
  • Ben Okri's official page on the Booker Prizes website.
  • Full length You Tube video of Ben Okri winning the 1991 Booker Prize.
  • The Ben Okri Bibliography – an extensive bibliography of works by and about Ben Okri. Also includes a short biography and an introduction to his work.
  • Audio: Ben Okri in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum, 19 July 2009.
  • , 4 April 2011.
  • , a poem by Ben Okri.
  • "Draw", a poem by Ben Okri.
  • "Lines in Potentis" 14 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine, a poem by Ben Okri.
  • "Children of the Dream", a poem by Ben Okri.
  • , a poem by Ben Okri.
  • , a poem by Ben Okri.
  • , a poem by Ben Okri.
  • "O That Abstract Garden" 12 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine, a poem by Ben Okri.
  • Ben Okri: An extended film interview with transcripts for the Why Are We Here? documentary series.
  • Réhab Abdelghany, "A Question of Power: Ben Okri's 'Meditations on Greatness' at Africa Writes", Africa in Words, 24 August 2015.

March 05, 2023
okri, frsl, born, march, 1959, nigerian, british, poet, novelist, okri, considered, foremost, african, authors, post, modern, post, colonial, traditions, been, compared, favourably, authors, such, salman, rushdie, gabriel, garcía, márquez, 1991, okri, booker, . Ben Okri OBE FRSL born 15 March 1959 is a Nigerian British poet and novelist 1 Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post modern and post colonial traditions 2 3 and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez 4 In 1991 Okri won the Booker Prize with his novel The Famished Road Ben OkriOBE FRSLBorn 1959 03 15 15 March 1959 age 63 Minna NigeriaOccupationWriterNationalityNigeriaUKGenreFiction essays poetryLiterary movementPostmodernism PostcolonialismNotable worksThe Famished Road 1991 A Way of Being Free 1997 Starbook 2007 A Time for New Dreams 2011 Notable awardsBooker Prize 1991Websitebenokri wbr co wbr uk Contents 1 Biography 2 Literary career 3 Influences 4 Awards and honours 5 Works 5 1 Novels 5 2 Poetry essays and short story collections 5 3 Film 5 4 Online fiction 6 References 7 Relevant literature 8 External linksBiography EditBen Okri is a member of the Urhobo people his father was Urhobo and his mother was half Igbo from a royal family 1 5 He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959 5 His father Silver moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old 3 so that he could study law 6 Okri thus spent his earliest years in London and attended primary school in Peckham 2 In 1966 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria 7 where he practised law in Lagos providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it 5 After attending schools in Ibadan and Ikenne Okri began his secondary education at Urhobo College at Warri 8 9 in 1968 when he was the youngest in his class 7 His exposure to the Nigerian civil war 10 and a culture in which his peers at the time claimed to have seen visions of spirits 3 later provided inspiration for Okri s fiction At the age of 14 after being rejected for admission to a short university program in physics because of his youth and lack of qualifications Okri experienced a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling 11 He began writing articles on social and political issues but these never found a publisher 11 He then wrote short stories based on those articles and some were published in women s journals and evening papers 11 Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list and necessitated his departure from the country 3 In 1978 Okri moved back to England and went to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government 12 11 When funding for his scholarship fell through however Okri found himself homeless sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends He describes this period as very very important to his work I wrote and wrote in that period If anything the desire to write actually intensified 11 Okri s success as a writer began when he published his debut novel Flowers and Shadows in 1980 at the age of 21 1 From 1983 to 1986 he served as poetry editor of West Africa magazine 7 and was also a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985 continuing to publish throughout this period 1 His reputation as an author was secured when his novel The Famished Road won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1991 1 13 making him the youngest ever winner of the prize at the age of 32 14 The novel was written during the three years from 1988 that Okri lived in a Notting Hill flat rented from publisher friend Margaret Busby 15 and he has said Something about my writing changed round about that time I acquired a kind of tranquillity I had been striving for something in my tone of voice as a writer it was there that it finally came together That flat is also where I wrote the short stories that became Stars of the New Curfew 12 Literary career Edit Quote from Ben Okri s Mental Fight on the Memorial Gates London Since the publication in 1980 of his first novel Flowers and Shadows Okri has risen to an international acclaim and he often is described as one of Africa s leading writers 2 3 His best known work The Famished Road which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize 16 along with Songs of Enchantment 1993 17 18 and Infinite Riches 1998 make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro a spirit child narrator through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri s remembrance of war torn Nigeria 1 Okri s work is particularly difficult to categorise Although it has been widely categorised as post modern 19 some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit world challenges this categorisation If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world it is claimed then his allegiances are not postmodern because he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some and not other truth claims 19 Alternative characterisations of Okri s work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore 20 New Ageism 19 21 spiritual realism 21 magical realism 22 visionary materialism 22 and existentialism 23 Against these analyses Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that a horse has four legs and a tail That doesn t describe it 3 He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of dream logic 10 and stated that his fiction often is preoccupied with the philosophical conundrum what is reality 11 insisting that I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death Which brings the question what is reality Everyone s reality is different For different perceptions of reality we need a different language We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there s more to the fabric of life I m fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history Nobody has an absolute reality 10 He notes the effect of personal choices Beware of the stories you read or tell subtly at night beneath the waters of consciousness they are altering your world 24 Okri s short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits 1 while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity 1 25 In the 2001 Queen s Birthday Honours he was appointed an OBE for services to Literature 26 Okri was made an honorary vice president of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre 1 On 26 April 2012 Okri was appointed the new vice president of the Caine Prize for African Writing having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years prior 27 In April 2019 Okri gave the keynote address at the second Berlin African Book Festival curated by Tsitsi Dangarembga 28 Influences EditOkri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father s book shelves as it was by literature 11 and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams 29 His literary influences include Aesop s Fables Arabian Nights Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream 10 and Coleridge s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 11 Okri s 1999 epic poem Mental Fight also is named after a quotation from the poet William Blake s And did those feet 30 and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri s poetry 22 Okri also was influenced by the oral tradition of his people and particularly his mother s storytelling If my mother wanted to make a point she wouldn t correct me she d tell me a story 10 His first hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works 10 On the final day of the 2021 COP26 climate meeting in Glasgow Okri wrote about the existential threat posed by the climate crisis and how ill equipped humans seem to be to confront the prospect of their own self inflicted extinction Indeed Okri says w e have to find a new art and a new psychology to penetrate the apathy and the denial that are preventing us making the changes that are inevitable if our world is to survive 31 Awards and honours Edit1987 Commonwealth Writers Prize Africa Region Best Book Incidents at the Shrine 32 1987 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction The Dream Vendor s August 33 1988 Guardian Fiction Prize Stars of the New Curfew shortlisted 34 1991 1993 Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts FCCA Trinity College Cambridge 35 1991 Booker Prize The Famished Road 36 1993 Chianti Ruffino Antico Fattore International Literary Prize The Famished Road 37 1994 Premio Grinzane Cavour Italy The Famished Road 32 1995 Crystal Award World Economic Forum 38 1997 Honorary Doctorate of Literature awarded by University of Westminster 39 1999 Premio Palmi it Italy Dangerous Love 40 2001 Order of the British Empire OBE 41 2002 Honorary Doctorate of Literature awarded by University of Essex 42 2003 Chosen as one of 100 Great Black Britons 43 2004 Honorary Doctor of Literature awarded by University of Exeter 44 2008 International Literary Award Novi Sad International Novi Sad Literature Festival Serbia 45 2009 Honorary Doctorate of Utopia awarded by Universiteit voor het Algemeen Belang Belgium 46 2010 Honorary Doctorate awarded by School of Oriental and African Studies 47 2010 Honorary Doctorate of Arts awarded by the University of Bedfordshire 48 2014 Honorary Fellow Mansfield College Oxford 49 2014 Bad Sex in Fiction Award Literary Review 50 51 Works EditNovels Edit Flowers and Shadows Harlow Longman 1980 52 The Landscapes Within Harlow Longman 1981 53 The Famished Road London Jonathan Cape 1991 54 Songs of Enchantment London Jonathan Cape 1993 55 Astonishing the Gods London Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 1995 56 Dangerous Love London Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 1996 57 Infinite Riches London Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 1998 58 In Arcadia Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 2002 59 Starbook London Rider Books 2007 5 The Age of Magic London Head of Zeus 2014 60 The Freedom Artist London Head of Zeus 2019 61 Every Leaf a Hallelujah London Head of Zeus 2021 62 Poetry essays and short story collections Edit Incidents at the Shrine short stories London Heinemann 1986 citation needed Stars of the New Curfew short stories London Secker amp Warburg 1988 63 An African Elegy poetry London Jonathan Cape 1992 64 Birds of Heaven essays London Phoenix House 1996 65 A Way of Being Free essays London Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 1997 London Phoenix House 1997 66 Mental Fight poetry London Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 1999 London Phoenix House 1999 67 Tales of Freedom short stories London Rider amp Co 2009 68 A Time for New Dreams essays London Rider amp Co 2011 69 Wild poetry London Rider amp Co 2012 70 The Mystery Feast Thoughts on Storytelling West Hoathly Clairview Books Ltd 2015 71 The Magic Lamp Dreams of Our Age with paintings by Rosemary Clunie Apollo Head of Zeus 2017 72 73 Rise Like Lions Poetry for the many as editor London Hodder amp Stoughton 2018 74 Prayer for the Living Stories London Head of Zeus 2019 75 76 A Fire in My Head Poems for the Dawn London Head of Zeus 2021 77 78 Film Edit N The Madness of Reason feature film directed by Peter Kruger 2014 79 Online fiction Edit A Wrinkle In The Realm The New Yorker 1 February 2021 References Edit a b c d e f g h i Ben Okri British Council Writers Directory Archived 2 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine a b c Ben Okri Editors The Guardian 22 July 2008 a b c d e f Stefaan Anrys Interview with Booker Prize laureate Ben Okri Mondiaal Nieuws 26 August 2009 Robert Dorsman Ben Okri Poetry International Web 2000 Archived 16 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine a b c d Maya Jaggi 10 August 2007 Free spirit The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved 30 May 2020 Juliet Rix Ben Okri My family values The Guardian 25 June 2010 a b c Paul Frailey 28 December 2011 Ben Okri 1959 BlackPast Retrieved 10 October 2021 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica 11 March 2021 Ben Okri Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 10 October 2021 Ben Okri profile The Guardian a b c d e f Anita Sethi Ben Okri novelist as dream weaver TheNational 1 September 2011 a b c d e f g h Interview Ben Okri Booker prize winning novelist and poet The Scotsman 5 March 2010 a b Nicola Venning 3 August 2014 Time and place Ben Okri The Sunday Times Ben Okri The Famished Road was written to give myself reasons to live The Guardian 15 March 2016 Ben Okri The Cultural Frontline BBC World Service 1 May 2016 Davies Paul 1 February 2023 Video Interview You do this or you die how Ben Okri wrote The Famished Road The Booker Prizes Retrieved 1 March 2023 The Booker Prizes Backlist The Booker Prizes thebookerprizes com Retrieved 8 January 2021 Songs of Enchantmen Publishers Weekly 30 August 1993 Retrieved 10 October 2021 Songs of Enchantment Kirkus Reviews 15 July 1993 Retrieved 10 October 2021 a b c Douglas McCabe Higher Realities New Age Spirituality in Ben Okri s The Famished Road Research in African Literatures vol 36 no 4 2005 1 21 Ato Quayson Transformations in Nigerian Writing Oxford James Currey 1997 a b Anthony K Appiah Spiritual Realism Review of The Famished Road by Ben Okri The Nation 3 10 August 1992 146 148 a b c Matthew J A Green Dreams of Freedom Magical Realism and Visionary Materialism in Okri and Blake Romanticism vol 15 no 1 2009 18 32 Ben Obumselu Ben Okri s The Famished Road A Re Evaluation Tydskrif vir Letterkunde vol 48 no 1 2011 26 38 A Thought for Today Ben Okri Wordsmith org 15 March 2017 Ben Okri A Time for New Dreams Archived 19 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine an interview with Claire Armitstead RSA London 4 April 2011 Ben Okri A writer honoured BBC News 13 June 2001 Retrieved 10 October 2021 Katie Allen Okri made Caine Prize vice president The Bookseller 26 April 2012 A snapshot of the African Book Festival 2019 in Berlin Germany James Murua s Literature Blog 9 April 2019 Retrieved 6 September 2022 Saskia Vogel Interview Ben Okri Granta Magazine 7 April 2011 Ben Okri Mental Fight An Anti Spell for the 21st Century London Phoenix House 1999 1 Okri Ben 12 November 2021 Artists must confront the climate crisis we must write as if these are the last days The Guardian London United Kingdom ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved 12 November 2021 a b Ben Okri Encyclopedia com www encyclopedia com Retrieved 19 May 2021 Acclaimed Author Ben Okri The London Nigerian Community News and Events for Nigerians in UK 16 September 2014 Retrieved 30 May 2020 Flood Alison 13 February 2012 Ben Okri erupts at editor over rewriting claim The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved 30 May 2020 Creative Arts Fellowship marks 50 years Trinity College Cambridge 21 September 2017 Retrieved 30 May 2020 The Famished Road The Booker Prizes thebookerprizes com Retrieved 30 May 2020 Ben Okri Literature literature britishcouncil org Retrieved 30 May 2020 Ben Okri www penguin co uk Retrieved 30 May 2020 Aghadiuno Eric Ben Okri OnlineNigeria com onlinenigeria com Retrieved 30 May 2020 UniVerse A United Nations of Poetry Ben Okri www universeofpoetry org Retrieved 30 May 2020 Ben Okri features in Glo CNN African Voices Vanguard News 24 June 2011 Retrieved 30 May 2020 Honorary Graduates Honorary Graduates University of Essex www1 essex ac uk Retrieved 30 May 2020 100 Great Black Britons Archived 24 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine website Ben Okri CCCB Retrieved 30 May 2020 Novi Sad International Literature Festival Literature Across Frontiers www lit across frontiers org 27 August 2014 Retrieved 30 May 2020 Honorary Degree in Utopia for Ben Okri Antwerp Belgium 2010 Youtube 10 March 2015 SOAS Awards Honorary Doctorate to Mr Ben Okri OBE www soas ac uk Retrieved 30 May 2020 South African university honours Nigerian author Ben Okri Vanguard News 23 April 2014 Retrieved 17 March 2022 Booker Prize winning author in conversation for Ken Hom annual lecture Oxford Brookes University www brookes ac uk Retrieved 30 May 2020 Jonathan Beckman Twitching Fairy Penguin Literary Review December 2014 Bad Sex in Fiction Ben Okri scoops 2014 prize BBC News 3 December 2014 Okri Ben 1989 1980 Flowers and shadows Longman ISBN 0 582 03536 8 OCLC 1043417403 The Ben Okri Bibliography Primary Sources www cerep ulg ac be Retrieved 30 May 2020 Nigerian Wins British Fiction Award The New York Times 23 October 1991 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 30 May 2020 Paul Taylor 21 March 1993 BOOK REVIEW Dreams of a boy on earth Songs of Enchantment Ben Okri Cape 14 99 pounds The Independent Ben Okri Writer Author Nigeria Personality Profiles www nigeriagalleria com Retrieved 30 May 2020 Dangerous Love House of Zeus Retrieved 10 October 2021 Ben Okri A Selective Bibliography Callaloo 38 5 1004 1005 2015 doi 10 1353 cal 2015 0165 ISSN 1080 6512 Hickling Alfred 12 October 2002 Review In Arcadia by Ben Okri The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved 30 May 2020 Author Okri receives bad sex prize BBC News 3 December 2014 Retrieved 30 May 2020 Stephanie Merritt Book of the day The Freedom Artist by Ben Okri review wake up call of a world without books The Guardian Retrieved 12 February 2019 Ellingham Miles 18 December 2021 Every Leaf a Hallelujah by Ben Okri a plea from the forest Financial Times Retrieved 4 February 2023 Alleyne Richard 11 February 2012 Ben Okri disappointment at editor he claims re wrote his work Daily Telegraph ISSN 0307 1235 Retrieved 31 May 2020 mjs76 Visiting Professor Ben Okri OBE FRSL University of Leicester www2 le ac uk Retrieved 31 May 2020 Gray Rosemary 1 July 2018 Ben Okri s Aphorisms Music on the Wings of a Soaring Bird Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 7 2 17 24 doi 10 2478 ajis 2018 0042 A Way of Being Free Head of Zeus 9 October 2014 ISBN 9781784081843 Roy Hattersley 21 August 1999 A man in two minds The Guardian Daniel Lucy 30 April 2009 Tales of Freedom by Ben Okri review Daily Telegraph ISSN 0307 1235 Retrieved 31 May 2020 The Ben Okri Bibliography On the Internet www cerep ulg ac be Retrieved 31 May 2020 Kathie Birat 2015 Through a Bending Light Ben Okri s Poetic Commitment Commonwealth Essays and Studies 38 1 Retrieved 10 October 2021 Ben Okri 4 November 2015 Under the Sun a meditation by Ben Okri on stories The Irish Times Philipa Coughlan 1 February 2019 The Magic Lamp Dreams of Our Age by Ben Okri NB Magazine Retrieved 10 October 2021 Rebecca swirsky 10 March 2018 Ben Okri s The Magic Lamp is a collection of morally ambiguous tales for our trying times New Statesman Retrieved 10 October 2021 Jeff Jackson September 2018 Books Rise Like Lions Poetry for the Many Socialist Review 438 Prayer for the Living Head of Zeus Babi Oloko 2 February 2021 The Immensity of Brevity On Ben Okri s Prayer for the Living Los Angeles Review of Books Retrieved 10 October 2021 Tamsin Hackett 1 July 2020 Ben Okri s first poetry collection in eight years goes to Head of Zeus The Bookseller Angeline Peterson 15 January 2021 Ben Okri s First Poetry Collection in Nine Years is Out Now Brittle Paper Retrieved 10 October 2021 N The Madness of Reason Blinkerfilm 9 March 2015 Relevant literature EditIrene Michael Oshoke 2015 Re inventing oral tradition in Ben Okri s trilogy The Famished Road Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches Anglia Ruskin University doctoral dissertation External links EditOfficial website Ben Okri s AALBC com Author Profile Ben Okri s official Facebook Page Ben Okri s MySpace page Ben Okri s official page on the Booker Prizes website Full length You Tube video of Ben Okri winning the 1991 Booker Prize The Ben Okri Bibliography an extensive bibliography of works by and about Ben Okri Also includes a short biography and an introduction to his work Audio Ben Okri in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum 19 July 2009 Ben Okri on RSA Audio 4 April 2011 The Awakening Age a poem by Ben Okri Draw a poem by Ben Okri Lines in Potentis Archived 14 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine a poem by Ben Okri Children of the Dream a poem by Ben Okri Dancing With Change a poem by Ben Okri I sing a new freedom a poem by Ben Okri As clouds pass above our heads a poem by Ben Okri O That Abstract Garden Archived 12 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine a poem by Ben Okri Ben Okri An extended film interview with transcripts for the Why Are We Here documentary series Rehab Abdelghany A Question of Power Ben Okri s Meditations on Greatness at Africa Writes Africa in Words 24 August 2015 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Ben Okri amp oldid 1142300329, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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