Ben Okri
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Articles by Ben Okri
Ben Okri talks taste
My personal style signifier is a beret, something I have worn for decades. Good berets are hard to source. Often the simplest ones are best.
‘Literature Teaches a Nation to Know Itself’
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‘A palette unlike anything in the west’: Ben Okri, Yinka Shonibare and more on how Nigerian art revived Britain’s cultural landscape
It is important to stress that these were not artists creating in isolation. They were in touch with the currents of world art, as can be seen by the responses to cubism in many works of sculpture. It was not a response as such but a taking back, a retrieval, of what cubism took from Africa. The other area in which this Nigerian modernism revealed itself is in the Nigerian novel.
“In his company, you could not be lazy’: remembering my friend Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o -
Sunday, June 1, 2025 5:54 pm By Ben Okri A giant of African literature whose best works existed between the political and the personal, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was warm, funny, and friendly – and liked to bet on my pool games. Among the African writers who emerged in the middle of the 20th century, the most political undoubtedly was Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.
remembering my friend Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
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‘In his company you could not be lazy’: remembering my friend Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o in 1980.Photograph: Frank Martin/The Guardian Among the African writers who emerged in the middle of the 20th century, the most political undoubtedly was Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Born in Kenya while it was still under British rule he was anti-colonialist, a communist, anti-dictatorial, and an almost militant proponent for African languages being used for African literature. His best works exist at the interface between the political and the personal.
Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Brokenhearted
1 The road to unhappiness is predictable, but the paths to happiness are surprising. Viv had the idea for the festival on the twentieth anniversary of the day her first husband abandoned her. She didn't know it was the anniversary at the time. She had been at a friend's party in Hampstead and found herself talking to a nice woman, a stranger, about the impossibility of recovering from real heartbreak.
Madame Sosostris & The Festival for the Broken-Hearted by Ben Okri
Madame Sosostris & The Festival for the Broken-Hearted Synopsis What do you do when your heart has been made a wasteland by love? Viv, who's in the House of Lords, had the idea for the festival on the twentieth anniversary of the day her first husband left her. Six months later, crowds descend on the grounds of a dreamlike chateau in the South of France, avidly awaiting the experience of a lifetime, Viv's inaugural Festival for the Broken-Hearted. Everyone is in fancy dress.
The Waterstones Round Up: March's Best Books
Posted on 26th February 2025 by Mark Skinner Get ready for a marvellous March, as we unveil the exciting new titles published this month. From the return of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to a riveting account of the Dr Crippen case, here are the books that are perfect for Mother's Day and beyond. We've been waiting for a decade for the new novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and this month the hugely acclaimed author of Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus returns with the superb Dream Count.
‘Is A Tale of Two Cities the greatest English novel? Meet me in a pub to discuss’
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Ben Okri: ‘Is A Tale of Two Cities the greatest English novel? Meet me in a pub to discuss’
Ben Okri.Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian My earliest reading memory In London, reading my dad’s copy of the Times at four. It embarrassed my mum, who hurried me out of the room when visitors came. My favourite book growing up In Lagos, in my teens, I discovered Ibsen’s plays and Chekhov’s stories. I transplanted the characters, imagining them as Nigerian. That’s the magic of reading.
The Must-Read Books To Have On Your Radar In 2025
Looking for more titles to add to your reading list this year? From explorations of love in all its forms and haunting thrillers to a necessary dose of reality, the Service95 Book Club shortlists our most-anticipated releases of 2025 The Book: Nineteen-year-old Nila is the daughter of Afghan refugees, living in Berlin.
The Creation of Half-Broken People
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu. House of Anansi, $20.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-4870-1327-1 Windham–Campbell Prize winner Ndolovu (The Theory of Flight) centers her astonishing latest on a Zimbabwean university student haunted by visions of her country’s troubled past. In the present day, the unnamed narrator interns at the prestigious Good Museum of African artifacts, run by a family foundation modeled after the legacy of Cecil Rhodes. She also happens to be dating Good family scion John Good IX.
Dream Count
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Knopf, $32 (416p) ISBN 978-0-593-80272-4 Adichie (Americanah) returns to fiction after more than a decade with this superb tale of the fleeting joys and abiding disappointments of four African women on both sides of the Atlantic. It begins with Chiamaka, a Maryland-based travel writer from Nigeria who recounts her history of failed romances while laid up during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Gaza – a new poem | Ben Okri - NewsBreak
1 Palestine Okri Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/REX/Shutterstock I don’t know how many have died Or how many died before war flared up. There must be a way to listen to all The pain that burns in a people Must be a way to hear all that anguish. Pain creates pain creates deadness Of heart. Distance makes all that suffering Unreal. How else can great powers Add bombs and missiles to an agony That’s engulfing the world in fire and rage?
Some Books to Read to Your Kids on Children's Day
Children’s Day celebrates the joy of childhood and what better way to do that than by sharing some enchanting stories? Here are ten delightful books to read with your kids that will take them on magical journeys and teach valuable life lessons. Read more about Education This Children’s Day, follow Anyaugo, a brave young girl in Nigeria, as she discovers a giant chicken in her kitchen one night. This whimsical story introduces children to the rich masquerade culture of West Africa.
Five Books Expert Recommendations
Before we get into your five book choices, I think most people need a bit of orientation about what a Neanderthal hominid was because there are so many misleading stereotypes around. We use the term ‘hominin’ now, although people are generally familiar with ‘hominid’.* The funny thing about Neanderthals is that everybody has heard of them. They’re probably the best-known hominin species, better known even than Homo erectus.
LoveReading Weekly Staff Picks
The LoveReading family exists because reading matters, and books change lives. Cheerleaders of authors and illustrators everywhere, the leading book recommendation websites now feature an online bookstore with social purpose where 25% of money spent can be donated to a school close to the buyer's heart, or to schools in need. Schools across the nation use their LoveReading4Schools Portal to encourage reading for pleasure and fund new books, with £50,000 already donated to schools. Buy a Book.
Arequipa by Ben Okri
Born in Minna, Nigeria, to an Igbo mother and an Urhobo father, poet, fiction writer, and essayist Ben Okri spent his early childhood in London while his father studied law and returned to Nigeria with his family in 1968. He studied comparative literature at Essex...
The Void | Ben Okri
I was talking to a builder of bridges and asked how he built the structure that brings two warring elements together. This was his answer. What is a bridge? A land divided, or the gap between? Most see a unity wrought through necessity and compromise, mutual respect, or cohabitation. But he was interested in the space separating these two lands that perhaps are one hope. And thinking of the vacuum made him forge a rare concept, one worthy of an old myth.
The best novels about African post-colonial life
Ben Okri won a Booker Prize in 1991 for this poetic storytelling finesse based on the Yoruba Abiku Myth. I love its lyrical depiction of life on the fringes of poor suburban Africa; the narration by Azaro, a 9-year-old boy who decides to stay with his Mom on earth rather than die as he was done in prior reincarnations, is a blend of Kafka and Marquez in tropical Africa, and everything that comes with the heat and humidity.
On Crime and Its Discontents
The first crime was the most defining moment in the history of the human. It was not Cain’s murder. That was defining too. But the first crime began in the realm of the numinous. It could only be deemed an act of spirit. Philosophers and religionists and mystics struggle to define it. The closest anyone came is the suggestion that it was a moment that was a break in the eternal axis of harmony. There doesn’t necessarily have to be established and defined laws for there to be a crime.
Earth cries! We are the gods that must step up to the biggest crisis in history
O when will we wake up? Who will give this crisis That can open the hearts And minds of the people? Of hiding can hide it. Only truth will save us. Have to wake up before night comes. Shadows are rushing towards us. Flowers are mourning. When will truth Come? When will we have the courage To give this hour in history its true name? How many of us must perish before A priority? We’re the not so slow Suicide of the world. We are the not so Fast saviours of the world.
Nigerian Novelist Ayòbámi Adébáyò’s A Spell of Good Things Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize
News Nigerian novelist Ayòbámi Adébáyò’s second novel A Spell of Good Things is on the longlist of this year’s edition of Booker Prize. A truly international prize with cash award of £50,000, the Booker Prize annually rewards a single work of fiction in English published in the UK by a writer of any nationality. A Spell of Good Things was published earlier this year in the UK by Canongate, the US by A Knopf, and in Nigeria by Ouida Books.
Sir Ben Okri: Being honoured means helping the human race to be more civilised
His best-known work includes The Famished Road novel trilogy, the first of which – The Famished Road – won the Booker Prize in 1991. Sir Ben has been made Knight Bachelor in the King’s Birthday honours for services to literature, having previously been made OBE in 2001. “I’m delighted to be given this honour. I think of the illustrious writers who have preceded me and the gifted writers to come,” he said, in a statement shared with the PA news agency.
Ian Wright, Davina McCall and Anna Wintour on King’s birthday honours list
Former England and Arsenal footballer-turned-pundit Wright was made an OBE. But the highest awards went to Vogue editor-in-chief Dame Anna and Booker Prize-winning novelist McEwan, who were made Companions of Honour. Bruce, 72, who presented the Radio 2 morning show for more than 30 years, described the honour as “a great surprise and privilege”, while McCall said: “I can’t believe it.
Ben Okri: How I wrote The Famished Road | The Booker Prizes
My first two volumes of stories were important in developing the new tone and the new forms of storytelling I needed. The realistic technique is sequential, but the realities of which I speak are often spiral, sometimes tangential, possibly simultaneous. Time is not just time. It is myth, belief, perception. Consciousness has a profound impact on time. Time warps and stretches in accordance with the weight or lightness of events, with our perceptions and our histories.
Lo scrittore nigeriano. Ben Okri: «Migranti, il sogno del ritorno è diventato incubo»
Ben Okri - Grinzane for Africa Oggi, lunedì 29 maggio, alle ore 21, Ben Okri sarà ospite della Milanesiana, ideata e diretta da Elisabetta Sgarbi, presso l’Almo Collegio Borromeo. L’autore nigeriano leggerà il testo qui anticipato e dialogherà con Abdulrazak Gurnah, che riceverà il Premio Rosa d’Oro della Milanesiana (opera di Gerardo Sacco). Saluti istituzionali del ministro della Cultura Gennaro Sangiuliano e del Magnifico Rettore Alberto Lolli.
Highlights from The Nigerian Broadcasting Awards
Advertisement The first-ever edition of The Nigeria Broadcasting Awards (TNBA) took place on Wednesday, commemorating the outstanding achievements of distinguished broadcast professionals, stations, and industry icons in various categories. Organized by the Broadcasting Organizations of Nigeria (BON), this prestigious event aimed to recognize and reward excellence in the broadcast media industry.
How I Wrote The Famished Road By Ben Okri-Mike Awoyinfa Column
Home News How I Wrote The Famished Road By Ben Okri–Mike Awoyinfa Column Advertisement By Ben Okri While living through my own childhood — listening to stories the elders told, having herbalists treat my glaucoma — I was aware that it would make a magnificent book. I began reading early and always had a sense of life as something that would be read.
100 witnesses to testify for Atiku, PDP in petition against Tinubu's election
Advertisement Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have revealed their plans to call not more than 100 witnesses to testify in their petition challenging the election of Bola Ahmed Tinubu before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC). Their lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN) disclosed this on Saturday in Abuja at the resumption of proceedings before the PEPC this morning.
How I wrote the Famished Road – The Sun Nigeria
By Ben Okri While living through my own childhood — listening to stories the elders told, having herbalists treat my glaucoma — I was aware that it would make a magnificent book. I began reading early and always had a sense of life as something that would be read. This does not mean that The Famished Road, my third novel, which won the Booker Prize in 1991, was autobiographical; only that the strange realities of life seemed already to belong to the magical world of reading.
To Heal the Planet, We Must Heal Ourselves: Ben Okri Proposes New Visions For Our Collective Future
Ben Okri is a featured participant in the PEN World Voices Festival events “Fireside Chat: Marlon James and Ben Okri: A Fire in My Head” and “Legacies of Dislocation, War, and Revolution. “A Sacred Place” will appear in Okri’s forthcoming Tiger Work: Poems, Stories and Essays About Climate Change (Other Press, June 20, 2023). For more information about the 2023 PEN World Voices Festival, please visit worldvoices.pen.org. * We say that there is a climate emergency.
Vicki Saunders On Radical Generosity Envisioned By Women In Social Entrepreneurship — Impact Boom | Social Impact Blog & Podcast | Global Changemaker Community | Social Innovation, Enterprise, Design
Racial justice working groups and all different organisations in our communities over the years have helped as we try to decondition ourselves, because the time that we're in right now requires us to imagine our way out of it. We're not going to think our way out of it with rational thinking, because all our systems are based on the past and the way we've done things. People are the same thing, and so we just need to adjust what's going on here.
Ben Okri on swapping novels for painting: ‘Could these two great rivers of creativity merge?’
To be an artist in the Lagos of my youth, you had to be multi-disciplinary. Under this democratic artistic spirit, I learned to paint. I did it secretly. At the same time, I was learning to write. Then one day, when it rained, I decided to find out what I wanted to do with my life. It was between art and literature. I put it to the test. I drew what was on the mantlepiece. Then I wrote a poem about the rain. The poem came easily, but I had to work for the drawing. I took the path of literature.
Morning Open Thread: Music So Sweet It Makes the Air Remember
Welcome toMorning Open Thread,a daily post with a MOTley crew of hosts who choose the topic for the day's posting.We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.That is a feature, not a bug.Other than that, site rulz rule. So grabyour cuppa, and join in.
‘The Famished Road’ and my quest for the imaginative richness of Africa
While living through my own childhood — listening to stories the elders told, having herbalists treat my glaucoma — I was aware that it...
Book Review: ‘Dangerous Love,’ by Ben Okri
In his new book, the Booker Prize winner Ben Okri imagines a star-crossed romance in battle-scarred Nigeria.
A Novel of ‘Dangerous Love’ in a Country Racked by Civil War
DANGEROUS LOVE, by Ben Okri We live in a universe of “ancient, unyielding” forces, Ben Okri suggests in his novel “Dangerous Love.” Okri is famous for bringing together many forms of storytelling to show such forces at work in the present reality of Nigeria, as he did in “The Famished Road,” which won the Booker Prize in 1991.
A Novel of ‘Dangerous Love’ in a Country Racked by Civil War
Book Review|A Novel of ‘Dangerous Love’ in a Country Racked by Civil War https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/books/review/ben-okri-dangerous-love.html Fiction In his new book, the Booker Prize winner Ben Okri imagines a star-crossed romance in battle-scarred Nigeria. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. The Nigerian writer Ben Okri in London.Credit...Kalpesh Lathigra for The New York Times Feb.
The Third Law of Magic
He spent the night making snow. He packed it tightly into balls of different sizes and stored them in the freezer to keep them stable. For a long time, he had wanted to make something so simple and natural that no one would suspect concerted thinking had gone into it. He wanted the greatest possible concentration of thought along with the greatest possible efficiency in the execution of that thought. Explore the March 2023 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
'You either do this or you die': how Ben Okri wrote The Famished Road
When The Famished Road was published in the UK in March 1991, it received a mixed reception - and its author, the Nigerian-British poet, playwright and novelist Ben Okri, was not surprised. ‘It’s not the kind of book you can be in tune with that quickly,’ he says. ‘I thought maybe it would take about 20 or 30 years. Reviews were divided. Some people were like, “What’s wrong with him?”, but there were also some extraordinary reviews.
'You do this or you die': how Ben Okri wrote The Famished Road
When The Famished Road was published in the UK in March 1991, it received a mixed reception - and its author, the Nigerian-British poet, playwright and novelist Ben Okri, was not surprised. ‘It’s not the kind of book you can be in tune with that quickly,’ he says. ‘I thought maybe it would take about 20 or 30 years. Reviews were divided. Some people were like, “What’s wrong with him?”, but there were also some extraordinary reviews.
The Gate of Angels: A Booker Prize quiz for Christmas
For an interactive version of this quiz, click here. 1. Who wrote the Booker-longlisted novel The Stranger’s Child? a) Alan Hollinghurst b) Jim Crace c) Will Self 2. Which novel by a future shortlisted author is set in the Marcia Blaine School for Girls? a) Under the Net by Iris Murdoch b) The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen c)The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark 3. Which Salman Rushdie novel was shortlisted in 1983, two years after he won with Midnight’s Children?
The Humble Lover
Edmund White. Bloomsbury, $27.99 (272p) ISBN 978-1-63973-088-9 In White’s audacious latest (after A Previous Life), wealthy Manhattanite Aldwych West pursues the younger August Dupond, principal dancer for the New York City Ballet. The 80-year-old’s aching desire for the 20-year-old enfant terrible leads to a live-in relationship that upends each of their lives. August prefers Gatorade to champagne, brings home other lovers, and engages in hardcore BDSM with his partners.
The Dig by Anne Burt
Anne Burt. Counterpoint, $26 (288p) ISBN 978-1-64009-604-2 Burt restages Antigone with a story of two Bosnian orphans and their adoptive American family in her inspired debut. Christopher and Eddie King, two American brothers who are in Sarajevo to build hotels when the siege begins in 1993, find Mujo and Andela in the rubble of a bombed-out building. The Kings adopt the children, rename them Paul and Antonia, and take them home to Thebes, Minn. Shortly after, Eddie dies from an opioid overdose.
Dangerous Love by Ben Okri
Ben Okri. Other Press, $18.99 trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-1-63542-266-5 Booker winner Okri (The Famished Road) offers American readers a sublime revision of a novel of his that was first published in the U.K., in 1982, under the title The Landscapes Within. In the early 1970s, a young man named Omovo has dreams of becoming an artist after the Nigerian civil war.
Ben Okri on How ‘Art Helps Us Unify’
Novelist Ben Okri has long been fascinated by what he calls “cusp moments,” or the periods that immediately precede catastrophe. As a child, he moved back to Nigeria with his family just before civil war broke out, and ever since, he has sought to understand how we can turn toward difficult truths that we refuse to see. In 2007, he published a novel, Starbook, that explored a mythical African society just before the Atlantic slave trade began.
Win A Copy Of The Book 'The Last Gifts Of The Master Artists: A Novel' By Ben Okri
Home > Free Books > Free Giveways > Win A Copy Of The Book ‘The Last Gifts Of The Master Artists: A Novel’ By Ben Okri November 10, 20222022-11-10T03:41:28-06:00 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.
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