Most Popular Books by Ben Okri

Topical and timely, Booker Prize–winning author Ben Okri’s new collection of short stories blurs parallel realities and walks the line between darkness and magic. A Library Journal Best Book of 2021 “No matter how different each story is in context or story line, Prayer for the Living is not simply a collection of different tales, it is a deliberate assemblage of universal truths that explores what it means to seek and to live.” —Los Angeles Review of Books Playful, frightening, shocking—these stories from a writer at the height of his power will make you think, or make you laugh. Sometimes they’ll make you want to look away, but they will always hold your gaze. These are stories set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, and in a printer’s shop in Lagos. Characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a woman in a dream, a man in a mirror, a little girl, a prison door, and the author himself. Each one of these twenty-four stories will make you wonder if what you see in the world can really be all there is . . .

From the Booker Prize–winning author of The Famished Road, a classic story of doomed love in a country trying to come to terms with its violent past. An epic of daily life, Dangerous Love is one of Ben Okri’s most accessible and most disarming novels. Omovo is an office worker and artist who lives at home with his father and his father’s second wife. In the communal world of the compound in which he lives, Omovo has both friends and enemies, but his most important relationship is with Ifeyiwa, a beautiful young married woman whom he loves with an almost hopeless passion—not because she doesn’t return his love, but because they can never be together. Against the backdrop of Nigeria’s civil war, Ben Okri creates an atmosphere where passion takes on a wholly different dimension as danger, greed, hunger, and betrayal loom at every turn.

A Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker In this poignant, timely collection, the renowned Booker Prize–winning author evokes the magic of nature and the urgency of protecting our environment. Twenty thousand years after a catastrophe wiped out the human race, visitors uncover their final messages scattered across the planet, in flooded cities and disintegrating books. These writings reveal the tragedies of people who continued to live as they always did—fearfully, selfishly—even as the end of their world loomed. These haunting stories within a story, together with a powerful selection of poems, fables, and essays, are a necessary reminder of the beauty of the earth and the importance of addressing the climate crisis with clarity, artistry, and passion.

Winner of 1991 Booker Prize. Nigerian author of Ìncidents at the shrine'' - and; F̀lowers and shadows'' - .

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. A magnificent achievement and a modern-day parable, Starbook offers a vision of life far greater than ourselves.

In this enchanting novel from the Booker Prize–winning author, a group of world-weary travelers discover the meaning of life in a mysterious Swiss mountain village. The Age of Magic has begun. Unveil your eyes. Eight weary filmmakers, traveling from Paris to Basel, arrive at a small Swiss hotel on the shores of a luminous lake. Above them, strewn with lights that twinkle in the darkness, looms the towering Rigi mountain. Over the course of three days and two nights, the travelers will find themselves drawn into the mystery of the mountain reflected in the lake. One by one, they will be disturbed, enlightened, and transformed, each in a different way. An intoxicating and dreamlike tale unfolds. Allow yourself to be transformed. Having shown a different way of seeing the world, Ben Okri now offers a different way of reading.

From the renowned Booker Prize–winning author, a powerful collection of poems covering topics of the day, such as the refugee crisis, Black Lives Matter protests, and COVID-19. In our times of crisis The mind has its powers This book brings together many of Ben Okri’s most acclaimed and politically charged poems. “Grenfell Tower, June 2017” was published in the Financial Times less than ten days after the fire, and Okri’s reading of it was played more than six million times on Facebook. “Notre-Dame Is Telling Us Something” was first read on BBC Radio 4, in the aftermath of the cathedral’s near destruction. It speaks eloquently of the despair that was felt around the world. In “shaved head poem,” Okri writes of the confusion and anxiety felt as the world grappled with a health crisis unprecedented in our times. “Breathing the Light” is 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 International, and more, make this a uniquely powerful collection that blends anger and tenderness with Okri’s inimitable vision.

This moving poetry collection from the Booker Prize–winning author finds strength and hope while reflecting on the complex issues that have burdened Africa. First published in 1992, Ben Okri’s remarkable debut collection features poems that are now considered classics and taught in schools and universities worldwide. Here he plays with the mystique of the African continent, countering simplistic narratives of suffering that have been imposed on it with vibrant, nuanced portraits of the traditions and resilience of African peoples. An invaluable window onto Okri’s experiences as a Nigerian immigrant to the United Kingdom and as a writer discovering his calling, these poems also speak to universal truths about love, injustice, and the search for meaning.

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

From Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri: twelve of his most controversial non-fiction pieces form this collection on the theme of freedom. Ranging from the personal to the analytical, covering subjects such as art, politics, storytelling and creativity, A WAY OF BEING FREE confirms Okri''s place as one of the most inspiring of contemporary writers. ''All I wanted to do was to remind myself at all times to just sing my song. To just sing it through all the difficulties and silences'' BEN OKRI.

Set in an African village, this follow-up to the Man Booker Prize–winning novel is “sometimes whimsical, sometimes bawdy . . . Fraught with wild visions” (The Times). “All is not well in the African village where Azaro lives. The child narrator of poet and novelist Okri’s The Famished Road, who had outwitted death in the previous book, again relates the oppressive events that continue to plague his village and his family. While political factionalization shatters the community''s cohesiveness, the prodigious bar owner Madame Koto, chief exponent of the ‘Party of the Rich,’ alternately exudes portentous metaphysical malaise and miraculous erotic force. Little Azaro, himself touched and distracted by a series of animuses, follows the heels of ‘dad,’ who is a resounding vessel, by turns, of cantankerous egotism and abased self-sacrifice. This Nigerian epic reveals a violent provincial world, opaque with magical spirits which place horrendous ethical demands on fragile and fickle humanity, as if to test each individual for a thread of virtuous constancy at the core. Events drench the essentially linear narrative with all the ruthless sensuousness of a tropical storm, and Okri’s prose is lucid and deft.” —Publishers Weekly “Okri conjures up the fabulous with the same ease as he affectingly details the ways of the human spirit in a lovingly evoked African setting teeming with life—both real and mythic . . . Stunning.” —Kirkus Reviews “Once again we’re bedazzled and bedeviled by Okri’s phantasmagoric prose and the strange and wondrous sensibility of Azaro, a spirit-child living in a poor African village.” —Booklist “Both a love story and an account of the political turmoil between the parties of Rich and Poor.” —The Independent “Passages of extraordinary beauty . . . Okri paints a convincing surrealist picture.” —The Sunday Times

An NPR Best Book of 2020: “Okri’s tale is especially resonant in our current post-truth environment.” —Booklist (starred review) 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. “With the stark power of myth, this political allegory evolves into an argument for artistic freedom.” —The New York Times Book Review “[With] prophetic warnings of apocalypse akin to Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, The Freedom Artist offers a contemplative look at post-truth society.” —Sierra Magazine “The concise, declarative prose and the parable-like architecture of the stories resemble ancient forms of wisdom literature.” —The Wall Street Journal “Combines fable, folklore, and mythology with moments of surreal horror to produce a rallying cry against the oppressive institutions that would seek to make knowledge illegal.” —Locus Magazine

Noveller fra 1980ernes Lagos om den rige og fattige indbyggere

The Booker Prize–winning author, a child of the Nigerian Civil War, reinvents through the story of the Atlantic slave trade the beautiful soul and resilient culture of his country. A boy and a girl meet by chance on a riverbank in Africa. One is the son of a king, struggling to find his place in the world, the other the daughter of a craftsman from the secretive tribe of master artists. The prince, entranced, stays hidden in the bushes. The girl, knowing nothing of him but his voice, agrees to meet again. When she fails to appear the next day, he begins to search for her, tracing her at last to her village where, disguised as an apprentice, he finds a place in her father’s workshop. But this is no fairy tale, no conventional love story. Their world—though they don’t know it yet—is ending. A strange wind has begun to blow, and in its wake, things are disappearing: songs, stories, artworks, and finally, people. Beautiful ships with white sails are glimpsed on the horizon… When the novel was first published in the UK in 2007 under the title Starbook, the central role of the Middle Passage was overlooked. Okri has since rewritten the book, giving it a new dimension, more light, more acumen. In 2022 the deep political impact of this extraordinary tale won’t be missed.

An epic poem touching on issues of racism, intolerance, and environmental destruction, from the Booker Prize–winning author. 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.

A rich, joyful collection of poems on living and loving from the Booker Prize–winning author. Freedom is the most precious commodity in the world. In this powerful collection, the celebrated novelist, essayist, dramatist, and poet Ben Okri explores the beauty contained in each one of us—the freedom of our spirit, the child within. He recalls the death of his father, the sacrifices of his mother, the hidden river of Edinburgh, falling in love. He writes about Virgil and Mozambique, about ringing the bell for freedom, the dreams of Calliope and the full moon. He enters the fifth circle, sings of the roses of spring, and aligns the pyramids to the magic stars. This is a gorgeous, exciting collection for everyone who loves Ben Okri’s vibrant style, and a perfect introduction to new readers of his poetry.

One of the BBC’s “100 Novels That Shaped Our World,” a much-needed fable that could change how we see ourselves and our reality, from the renowned Booker Prize–winning author. A young man finds himself among invisible beings who have built a world based on one principle: that we must repeat every experience until we live it fully for the first time. “Only then can we find what we didn’t seek and go where we don’t intend to go.” Ben Okri navigates the world at once as a writer, an artist, a musician, and a philosopher—in the process, he challenges our craving for the visual and the concrete. We read him not only with our eyes but also with our senses, our intuition. As his story unfolds we begin to inhabit the ineffable land that he creates, our imagination led to a place where what we once thought were fundamental truths are turned magically on their heads. In the difficult times we live in, in an age decimated by injustice and inequality, Okri brings unexpected insights as meaningful as they are transformative. “Maybe what seeks us is better than what we seek.”

The Guardian: Best Children''s and YA Book of the Year An environmental fairytale that speaks eloquently to the most pressing issues of our times, from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Famished Road. Mangoshi lives with her mom and dad in a village near the forest. When her mom 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. Ben Okri brings the power of his mystic vision to a timely story that weaves together wonder, adventure, and environmentalism.

As one of Britain''s foremost poets, Ben Okri is rightly acclaimed for his use of language. And as a Booker Prize winning novelist, this skill was shown to particular effect in both Starbook (his most recent work) and in The Famished Road. In Tales of Freedom he brings both poetry and story together in a fascinating new form, using writing and image pared down to their essentials, where haiku and story meet. Thus we discover Pinprop, the slave to an old couple lost in a clearing, who holds the keys to the universe in his quirky hands. Then there is the beautifully dressed black Russian on the train, helping to film a new version of ''Eugene Onegin''. Later, in the chaos of the aftermath of war, orphaned children paint mysterious shapes of bulls, birds, hybrid creatures, and we wonder if grief has unhinged them into genius...And who is that woman, who hardly speaks, who presses a tiny flower into the palm of the young boy on the bus, and then leaves his life forever? 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 - and show the wealth of freedom that''s available beyond the confines of our usual perceptions.

A bold new adaptation of the 4,000-year-old Egyptian poem about Warrior King Sinuhe that captures the essence of civilization and the complexities of immigration, from the Booker Prize–winning author. Forced to flee Egypt, Sinuhe is captured as a prisoner of war by the foreign Kingdom of Retenu. Stripped of status and tormented by memories, Sinuhe will need great force of will to survive as a stranger in an unknown land. But can he transcend the mysterious powers of Egypt and the tribulations of exile? With two actors incarnating a multitude of characters, Ben Okri’s play recreates one of the world’s first known stories, a timeless tale about the strength of the human spirit.

‘In every moment, we are part of the infinite stories that the universe is telling us and that we are telling the universe.’ 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.

Twenty-five stories, twenty-five paintings, five years to write, ten years to paint. This is an extraordinary collaboration between artist and artist: 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?

A collection of exquisitely crafted essays by Ben Okri, one of Britain''s foremost poets, and a Booker Prize-winning novelist, that explore such diverse themes as childhood and creativity, beauty, censorship, art and politics. ''A single line,'' writes Ben Okri, ''can lead the mind to terraces of contemplation. Naturally it depends on the line and the view.'' 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. ''Profound and enchanting'' The Times. ''There can be no mistaking Okri''s passion and intelligence. A powerful piece of work'' Sunday Telegraph.

A potent combination of political, metaphorical, and mythical storytelling” from the prizewinning author of The Freedom Artist (The Scotsman). “Who can be certain where the end begins?” said Dad, shortly before he was arrested for the murder of the carpenter . . . This novel, the conclusion to the trilogy that began with the Man Booker Prize winner The Famished Road, follows the spirit-child Azaro, who travels between the worlds of the living and the dead. Set against the backdrop of a Nigerian village in turmoil, it is a novel about the multiple forms that wealth and power can take, the challenges of the physical world, and the wonders of the mystical world, by an author who has earned numerous literary honors and whose “writing is hailed for its intelligence, tenderness, poeticism and luminosity” (Financial Times). “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, author of Autumn

''Rich with insight into the craft and the art of the short story, this book will delight both writers and readers.''