The Freedom Artist

An impassioned plea for freedom and justice, set in a world uncomfortably like our own, by the Man Booker-winner Ben Okri.

Reviews

‘Ben Okri’s most significant novel since his Man Booker Prize-winning masterpiece The Famished Road, The Freedom Artist weaves together ancient myth and modern politics for an impassioned story primed for the post-truth age. A story of love and loss, fiercely told and impossible to ignore’ Waterstones, ‘The Best Books to Look Out For in 2019’.

‘A multi-layered allegorical narrative that cuts to the heart of our current political and cultural malaise, while maintaining a mythical, mesmeric flavour that makes the reader feel these are stories they have always known … It’s savagely political, disturbing and fiercely optimistic, the deeply felt work of a writer who refuses to stop asking the hardest questions’ Observer.

‘Okri creates a chilling atmosphere … Okri’s rhythmic, folk tale-like prose is beguiling’ Sunday Times.

‘These ideas are virtuosically juggled in a series of short enigmatic chapters … The story does not so much unfold as become manifest … The Freedom Artist has a compelling power and energy that won’t let the reader go. Or fall by the wayside’ Herald.

‘A heady jumble of influence and inspiration, a tapestry of biblical reference, mythology, folklore and fable. The lyrical simplicity of Okri’s prose, with its short sentences and chapters, only heightens the power of the novel’s political message’ Financial Times.

‘In a world not unlike our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested. Her lover goes looking for her. An examination of post-truth society and justice from the Booker-winning author of The Famished Road‘ The Times, ‘Biggest Novels of 2019’.

‘The new novel from the Booker winner is set in a world of oppression and imprisonment – one rather like our own’ Guardian, ‘What You’ll Be Reading This Year’.

2019 Irish Times ‘Most Exciting and Intriguing International Fiction’.

‘Fiction’s master enchanter stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power’ Marlon James.

‘Okri’s trademark magical literary thinking is not broke and he is not about to fix it … The Freedom Artist is an adventure story and an intense trip through the most esoteric corners of the human mind. It’s also a beautiful and timely appeal for the importance of books, subversive stories and love’ The Times.

Now available in paperback.

Read a Q&A with Ben Okri at Publishers Weekly.

Read an excerpt of The Freedom Artist at LitHub.

Read an article by Ben Okri at the Financial Times.

Read an opinion piece by Ben Okri at The Guardian.

Listen to Ben Okri and Vanity Fair’s Anderson Tepper in conversation as part of PEN America’s These Truths podcast. 

Watch an interview with Ben Okri at France 24: