Woven Press: Magical Realism for the Current Reality

Eye on the Indies: A Look at Indie Authors and Their Publishers

By Lanie Tankard, Indie Book Review Editor

Ben Okri is a multi-genre author. The 1991 Booker Prize for Fiction crowned him a novelist for The Famished Road—the youngest winner ever at the age of thirty-two. Now he has a dozen novels out. Yet he’s also written half a dozen poetry books, the latest of which appeared just last month in Britain: A Fire in My Head. And plays as well. Screenplays, too. Essays? Check—with a book of linked essays: A Time for New Dreams.

He has twenty-eight books in all, and has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. He’s published a book on the art of storytelling, The Mystery Feast. His website includes a Creative page that he uses as a “musing wall” for his thoughts. In 2009, Okri invented a new form of writing he terms Stoku (a mashup of story and haiku).

His short stories have been collected in various books such as The Comic Destiny, The Magic Lamp, Tales of Freedom, Birds of Heaven, Incidents at the Shrine, Stars of the New Curfew…and now Prayer for the Living.

Read the full article here.