Conversations with Ben Okri

Conversations with Ben Okri
Author :
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages : 139
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781496851574
ISBN-13 : 1496851579
Rating : 4/5 (74 Downloads)

Synopsis Conversations with Ben Okri by : Vanessa Guignery

Conversations with Ben Okri collects twenty-six interviews that range from 1986 to 2023 and reflect the international resonance of Nigerian writer Ben Okri's work. The reader is given access to the various phases of Okri’s life and career, beginning with his childhood (b. 1959) and upbringing in Nigeria and the publication of his early short stories and novels. The interviews also explore the tremendous success of The Famished Road (for which Okri became the first Black African writer to receive the Booker Prize in 1991) and the dazzling creativity of his subsequent work in a multiplicity of literary genres. The volume offers insight into the writer’s creative process and his unique views on literature, history, memory, politics, freedom, spirituality, and environmental issues. The conversations often veer into fascinating philosophical discussions about the nature of art and reality, the value of myth, and the dynamics of storytelling. Since the publication of his first novel in 1980, Okri has encouraged his readers to open their minds and eyes to new modes of perceiving reality. Convinced of the universality of art, he has been intent on redreaming the world from a variety of perspectives in poems, essays, short stories, novels, and plays written over a period of more than forty years. Throughout his career, Ben Okri has never stopped experimenting with new forms, creating the stoku (a mixture of short story and haiku), endowing his fictional and nonfictional creations with poetic undertones, and collaborating with visual artists, musicians, and dancers.

The Age of Magic

The Age of Magic
Author :
Publisher : Other Press, LLC
Total Pages : 257
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781635422696
ISBN-13 : 1635422698
Rating : 4/5 (96 Downloads)

Synopsis The Age of Magic by : Ben Okri

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.

The Freedom Artist

The Freedom Artist
Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages : 323
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781788549585
ISBN-13 : 1788549589
Rating : 4/5 (85 Downloads)

Synopsis The Freedom Artist by : Ben Okri

One of 2019's most anticipated novels in THE TIMES, IRISH TIMES and GUARDIAN. '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, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2015. An impassioned plea for freedom and justice, set in a world uncomfortably like our own, by the Man Booker-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. To find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question. Karnak's search leads him into a terrifying world of lies, 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. '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.

Every Leaf a Hallelujah

Every Leaf a Hallelujah
Author :
Publisher : Other Press, LLC
Total Pages : 112
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781635422719
ISBN-13 : 163542271X
Rating : 4/5 (19 Downloads)

Synopsis Every Leaf a Hallelujah by : Ben Okri

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.

Starbook

Starbook
Author :
Publisher : Random House
Total Pages : 432
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781407022550
ISBN-13 : 1407022555
Rating : 4/5 (50 Downloads)

Synopsis Starbook by : Ben Okri

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.

Conversations with Julian Barnes

Conversations with Julian Barnes
Author :
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages : 232
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1604732032
ISBN-13 : 9781604732030
Rating : 4/5 (32 Downloads)

Synopsis Conversations with Julian Barnes by : Julian Barnes

Talks with the British author of Flaubert's Parrot and Arthur & George

Prayer for the Living

Prayer for the Living
Author :
Publisher : Akashic Books
Total Pages : 140
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781617758744
ISBN-13 : 1617758744
Rating : 4/5 (44 Downloads)

Synopsis Prayer for the Living 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 . . .

In Arcadia

In Arcadia
Author :
Publisher : Head of Zeus
Total Pages : 0
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1784082570
ISBN-13 : 9781784082574
Rating : 4/5 (70 Downloads)

Synopsis In Arcadia by : Ben Okri

From Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri: a voyage into the enduring myth of Arcadia and the mysterious painting it inspired. A lyrical novel about art and enlightenment that takes the reader from Waterloo Station in London to Paris and a four hundred year old enigma, the painting by Nicolas Poussin known as 'Et in Arcadia Ego'. 'We never write the book we think we are writing. We never read the book we think we are reading' BEN OKRI.

Letters to the Earth: Writing to a Planet in Crisis

Letters to the Earth: Writing to a Planet in Crisis
Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
Total Pages : 200
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780008374457
ISBN-13 : 0008374457
Rating : 4/5 (57 Downloads)

Synopsis Letters to the Earth: Writing to a Planet in Crisis by :

A profound, powerful and moving collection of 100 letters from around the world responding to the climate crisis, introduced by Emma Thompson and lovingly illustrated by CILIP award winner Jackie Morris. ‘All power to this amazing project.’ JOANNE HARRIS ‘Makes sense of the climate crisis in a whole new way’ MAGID MAGID

The Famished Road

The Famished Road
Author :
Publisher : National Geographic Books
Total Pages : 0
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781529114911
ISBN-13 : 1529114918
Rating : 4/5 (11 Downloads)

Synopsis The Famished Road by : Ben Okri

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE ‘So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use’ The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. He is born into a world of poverty, ignorance and injustice, but Azaro awakens 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. The tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits propels this latter-day Lazarus's story. Despite belonging to a spirit world made of enchantment, where there is no suffering, Azaro chooses to stay in the land of the Living: to feel it, endure it, know it and love it. This is his story. ‘In a magnificent feat of sustained imaginative writing, Okri spins a tale that is epic and intimate at the same time. The Famished Road rekindled my sense of wonder. It made me, at age 50, look at the world through the wide eyes of a child’ Michael Palin