Ben Okri - The Last Gift of the Master Artists & other works (26 books)
BEN OKRI (b. 1959) is a Nigerian poet, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright. He is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions, and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction.
Okri has described his fiction as obeying a kind of "dream logic" that is often preoccupied with the question: What is reality? "I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death... I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives."
His first novels, FLOWERS AND SHADOWS (1980) and THE LANDSCAPES WITHIN (1981), employ surrealistic images to depict the corruption and lunacy of a politically scarred country. Similarly, the short-story collections INCIDENTS AT THE SHRINE (1986) and STARS OF THE NEW CURFEW (1988) portray the essential link in Nigerian culture between the physical world and the world of the spirits.
Okri won international acclaim and the Booker Prize for his novel THE FAMISHED ROAD (1991), the story of Azaro, an abiku or "spirit child" who in the Yoruba tradition exists between life and death. Two subsequent novels, SONGS OF ENCHANTMENT (1993) and INFINITE RICHES (1998), enlarge upon the themes of The Famished Road, tracing Azaro's quest for identity through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria.
He has published several volumes of poetry, including AN AFRICAN ELEGY (1992), a collection of poems that urges Africans to overcome the forces of chaos within their countries, and the long poem MENTAL FLIGHT (1999). His latest collection of poems, A FIRE IN MY HEAD (2021), contains some of his most famous and highly charged political poems.
His essays have also been widely read and influential. A WAY OF BEING FREE (1997) contains some of his best-loved meditations on the power and magic of storytelling. A TIME FOR NEW DREAMS (2011) breaks new ground in an unusual collection of linked essays, which address such diverse themes as childhood, self-censorship, the role of beauty, the importance of education and the real significance of the recent economic meltdown.
THE LAST GIFT OF THE MASTER ARTISTS (2022), Okri's most recent work, is a magical take on Africa before the arrival of the Atlantic slave ships – a world of art and artists, lovers, storytellers and philosophers. First published in 2007 under the title STARBOOK , Okri spent years rewriting the epic novel, seeking to bring to it a greater simplicity, to make the political and historical dimensions of the story clearer. "This is a story of a people on the eve of catastrophe," Okri has said. "Others can tell of the catastrophe itself. I want to see the people in the last days of their innocence."
The following books are in ePUB format unless otherwise noted:
== NOVELS ==
* The Age of Magic (Head of Zeus, 2014)
* Astonishing the Gods (Head of Zeus, 2014 / Other Press, 2021)
* Dangerous Love (Head of Zeus, 2014)
* The Famished Road (Open Road, 2016)
* Flowers and Shadows (Longman, 1989) – PDF
* The Freedom Artist (Head of Zeus, 2019 / Akashic Books, 2020)
* In Arcadia (Head of Zeus, 2014)
* Infinite Riches (Open Road, 2020)
* The Last Gift of the Master Artists (Head of Zeus, 2022)
* Songs of Enchantment (Vintage UK, 2003 / Open Road, 2020)
* Starbook: A Magical Tale of Love and Regeneration (Rider, 2008)
== SHORT STORIES ==
* The Comic Destiny (Head of Zeus, 2019)
* Incidents at the Shrine (Faber & Faber, 1986) – PDF
* The Magic Lamp: Dreams of Our Age (Apollo, 2017)
* Prayer for the Living: Stories (Head of Zeus, 2019 / Akashic, 2021)
* Stars of the New Curfew (Viking, 1988) – PDF
* Tales of Freedom (Rider, 2010)
== POETRY ==
* A Fire in My Head: Poems (Head of Zeus, 2021)
* An African Elegy (Vintage UK, 2015)
* Mental Fight: Poems (Head of Zeus, 2021)
* Wild: Poems (Head of Zeus, 2021)
== NON-FICTION ==
* A Time for New Dreams (Head of Zeus, 2019)
* A Way of Being Free (Head of Zeus, 2014)
* The Mystery Feast: Thoughts on Storytelling (Clairview, 2015)
== FOR CHILDREN ==
* Every Leaf a Hallelujah (Other Press, 2022). Diana Ejaita, illus.
== EDITOR ==
* Rise like Lions: Poetry for the Many (Hodder & Stoughton, 2018)
Note: For an excellent bibliography of primary and secondary sources on Ben Okri, see that compiled by Daria Tunca (University of Liège, Belgium): http://www.cerep.ulg.ac.be/okri/
Quote of the day: "Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world." – Ben Okri
