Books & Bibliography
Ben Okri is a writer who cannot be categorised. His books are richly varied. He has written significantly in every genre and form of literature.
No two of his books are the same, though they explore themes of reality, unreality, society, storytelling, freedom, magic, consciousness, history, politics, justice, and the intensely poetic. He is known for his magical and innovative writing and the ambiguous clarity of his style. He is often referred to as a postmodern writer.
Everyman edition of The Famished Road
Novel (2021) - Everyman's Library
A beautiful hardcover Contemporary Classics edition of Nigerian author Ben Okri’s lushly imaginative novel, which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1991. The narrator of The Famished Road is a spirit-child who exists between life and death, destined to an endless cycle of death and rebirth. But this time, born with a smile on his face, Azaro begins…
Changing Destiny Play
Play (2021) - Bloomsbury
Two actors, a thousand characters, and the story of how a kingdom is changed… An epic new adaptation of the 4,000-year-old Egyptian poem about the Warrior King, Sinuhe written by Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri that captures the essence of humanity and the complexities of immigration.
A Fire in My Head
Poetry (2021) - Apollo
A powerful collection of new and recently completed poems by Ben Okri covering topics of the day, such as the refugee crisis, racism, Obama, the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Corona outbreak. In our times of crisis The mind has its powers This book brings together many of Ben Okri’s most acclaimed and politically charged…
“Mental Fight” Revised Edition 2021
Poetry (2021) - Apollo
An epic poem touching on issues of racism, intolerance and environmental destructions from Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri. 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…
“Wild” Re-issue 2021
Poetry (2021) - Apollo
Poems of living and loving from Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri. 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…
The Comic Destiny
Short Stories (2019) - Head of Zeus
As one of Britain’s foremost poets, Ben Okri brings both poetry and story together, paring writing and image down to their essentials. This significant title story ‘The Comic Destiny’ forms the centrepiece of this collection, complemented by thirteen magical stokus. In his new introduction Ben Okri describes it as a talisman, an alchemic instigator for…
The Age of Magic
Novel (2014) - Head of Zeus
Eight film-makers 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 travellers will find themselves drawn in to the mystery of the mountain reflected in the…
Wild
Poetry (2012) - Rider & Co
Acclaimed for his poetic vision as for the beauty of his language, in these poems Okri captures both the tenderness and the fragility, as well as the depths and the often hidden directions of our lives. To him, the ‘wild’ is an alternative to the familiar; an essential place in the journey where energy meets…
A Time for New Dreams
Essay (2011) - Rider & Co
Booker Prize-winning novelist and one of Britain’s foremost poets, Ben Okri is a passionate advocate of the written word. In A Time for New Dreams he 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…
Tales of Freedom
Short Story (2009) - Rider & Co
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….
Starbook
Novel (2007) - Rider Books
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…
In Arcadia
Novel (2002) - Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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…
Mental Fight
Poetry (1999) - Weidenfeld & Nicolson / Phoenix House
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…
Infinite Riches
Novel (1998) - Weidenfeld & Nicolson
In the chaotic world of his African village, the spirit-child Azaro still watches the tumultous and tender lives of the Living; of his father who has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit and of his mother who battles for justice. This final chapter in Azaro’s adventures is a explosive and haunting climax…
Birds of Heaven
Short Story (1996) - Phoenix House
This volume contains two short prose pieces focusing on two of Okri’s central themes – the power of words and the role of the writer and storyteller in a changing world. This book makes the message more direct, to go beyond words to a higher spirituality, to contemplation and revelation.
Dangerous Love
Novel (1996) - Weidenfeld & Nicolson
An epic of daily life, DANGEROUS LOVE is a story of doomed love, of star-crossed lovers, separated not by their families, but by the very circumstances of their lives. ‘I hope among my novels this one achieves something I have long sought.’ – BEN OKRI. “‘Dangerous Love’ is exactly what its title says, a…
Astonishing the Gods
Novel (1995) - Weidenfeld & Nicolson
A young man finds himself living among invisible beings who have built a utopia based on one principle: that we must repeat or suffer every experience until we experience it properly and fully for the first time. ‘The hero of this novel finds what he did not seek, and goes where he did not intend…
Songs of Enchantment
Novel (1993) - Jonathan Cape
One great thought can change the dreams of the world. One great action, lived out all the way to the sea, can change the history of the world. The adventures of Azaro, the spirit child, continue. From the bestselling author of The Famished Road comes this radiant sequel.
An African Elegy
Short Story (1992) - Jonathan Cape
Dreams are the currency of Okri’s writing, particularly in this first book of poems, An African Elegy, but also in his books of short stories and prize-winning novel The Famished Road. Okri’s dreams are made on the stuff of Africa’s colossal economic and political problems, and reading the poems is to experience a constant succession…
The Famished Road
Novel (1991) - Jonathan Cape
He is born into a world of poverty, ignorance and injustice, but Azaro awakens with a smile on his face. 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…
Stars of the New Curfew
Short Story (1988) - Secker & Warburg
To enter the world of Ben Okri’s stories is to surrender to a new reality. Set in the chaotic streets of Lagos and the jungle heart of Nigeria, all the laws of cause and effect, fact and fiction, are suspended. It is a world where the lives of the powerless veer terrifyingly close to nightmare….
Incidents At The Shrine
Short Story (1986) - Heinemann
The Famished Road. Whether the subject is a child’s eye view of the Nigerian Civil War, Lagos and the spirit world or dispossession in a decaying British inner city, Okri’s lyrical, poetic and humorous prose recreates the known and the unknown world with startling power.
