Tales of Freedom is Ben's newest book and is published in April 2009 - Tales of Freedom.
About Tales of Freedom "A haunting necklace of images which flash and sparkle as the light shines on them. Quick and stimulating to read, but slowly burning in the memory, they offer a different, more transcendent way of looking at our extreme, gritty world - and show the wealth of freedom that's available beyond the confines of our usual perceptions."
Ben is a poet and novelist. He was born in 1959 in Minna, northern Nigeria, to an Igbo mother and Urhobo father, but now lives in London.
He has published 11 books, including The Famished Road, as well as collections of poetry and essays. His latest book, Starbook, was published by Ebury Press in August, 2007.
Ben is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2000 was awarded the OBE. Translated into more than 20 languages, Ben has been awarded numerous international prizes including the Booker Prize in 1991, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Kahn Prize for Fiction, and was presented with a Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum.
Who I'd like to meet: Those who are interested in the alchemy of life.
Praise for Starbook
"Starbook’s language is so intensely lyrical it reads like a shaman’s incantation."
Melissa McLements, Financial Times
"The basic premise of the novel is a simple one: boy meets girl, tries to find ways to woo her, fights off a rival and travels with her into eternity. But this most simple of plots belies the extraordinary messages and hidden meanings waiting to be extracted from Okri's text...a profound philosophical meditation upon the transience of life and the desperate need that human beings have to achieve immortality by creating great masterpieces....this book pushes the experience of reading far beyond any usual boundaries....profoundly passionate, moving and intense" Scotland on Sunday
"Okri's is an art that sometimes communicates before it is understood. It echoes the Bible in its conundrums. It rhymes like Shakespeare in its couplets. It often evokes Judaism's Book of Life. And like the New Testament, it advocates that salvation stems from pure love. Its narrator cautions against our immediate understanding. Understanding may stop you from seeing, he suggests. To find "that which is truer" we must first be prepared to abandon that which we cling to, that which blinds us."
Tom Adair, The Scotsman
Greetings Ben, From Africa to the United States your work has been present and influential in my life. I think you should pay me a million dollars for reading the Farmished road: That book is ever present in my mind, I read it when I was going through a particularily difficult time in my life and it brought so much light, laughter and intrigue, I think I should have paid you for getting better than the doctors keep up the good work.
I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and it's meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging the unity with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence of civilisation. And when Native man left off this form of development, his humanisation was retarded in growth.
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you have all these books I'm now looking forward to reading...to think I didn't know about you until I heard that quote on Criminal Minds... in the middle of the night... it struck me! :) Peace and blessings!
