Some twenty years after the publication of Ben Okri’s 1991 Booker Prize winning novel, The Famished Road, this volume proposes a spiralling journey into the imaginary homelands of its main protagonist, the adventurous spirit-child Azaro. Over the years, The Famished Road has been attributed a variety of mixed and sometimes contradictory labels (postcolonial, magic realist, mythopoeic, new ageist, picaresque, epic, to name just a few). Contributors to this volume have chosen to look beyond pre-conceived patterns and categories in order to embrace the otherness of the text and accept to be challenged by it. Disentangling themselves from the rationality of Western discourses, they have opened their minds to unfamiliar ground and new modes of being and seeing the world, which entailed bringing together various structures of feeling, modes of knowledge and protocols of representation, both African and Western. The purpose of this volume is therefore to offer new ways of reading The Famished Road that testify to the richness of Okri’s poetic prose and his reliance on indigenous mythical and oral traditions. The volume also includes an exclusive interview with Ben Okri who provides an insight into his writing processes and discusses the main themes, narrative techniques and literary strategies at work in The Famished Road.

Journey between the land of the Living and the spirit world in this magical Booker Prize-winning novel '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' Azaro, is a spirit child, who in many traditions of Nigeria exists between life and death. Born into a difficult world, 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 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 'This is a book to generate apostles. People will be moved and, with stars in their eyes, will pass on the word' Time Out 'Ben Okri is incapable of writing a boring sentence' Independent on Sunday

Unlock the more straightforward side of The Famished Road with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Famished Road by Ben Okri, which follows the spirit child Azaro as he navigates a world rife with poverty, violence and political instability. Unlike most spirit children, Azaro has chosen to remain in the world of the living instead of dying as an infant and being reborn, but his experience of life is continually shaped by his interactions with spirits and other magical figures. The Famished Road won the Man Booker Prize in 1991 and is Ben Okri’s best-known work. He has also written a number of other novels, as well as several collections of poetry, essays and short stories. Find out everything you need to know about The Famished Road in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time. See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!

This volume focuses on major fiction, poetry and non-fiction from Africa. Organized by title, it discusses 50 works through detailed essays.

The focus of this study is to examine satirical and critical modes both as objective and creative media. It explores the tradition of satire in African oral and written literature pre-Okri, and analyses how his practice of satire coheres with advances in the existing tradition, or differs from it. The targets of Ben Okri's criticism, his techniques of attack, and other devices are identified and discussed in full. Finally the author presents an opinion as to how far Ben Okri's works have succeeded in making a satirical and critical appraisal of the socio-political climate in Africa generally, particularly in Nigeria.

Gale S/A 12-29-99 $132.53.

Provides critical and biographical essays on English writers from parts of the former British Empire.

One number each year includes Annual bibliography of Commonwealth literature.