- Ben Okri
-
Ben Okri OBE FRSL (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist.[1] Okri has become the leading figure of his generation of Nigerian writers who have largely abandoned the social and historical themes of Chinua Achebe, and brought together modernist narrative strategies and Nigerian oral and literary tradition.[1]
Contents
Biography
Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people.[1] He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959.[1] His father Silver moved his family to London so that Silver could study law on a scholarship.[1] Ben thus spent his earliest years in London including some primary school. In 1968 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria where he practiced law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it.[1] This would later provide inspirational writing material for Ben's fiction.[1] Ben was constantly being withdrawn from various schools so he continued his education largely at home in Lagos.[1] He finished high school and got a job at a paint store.[1] After failing to get entry to University he began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher.[1] He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers.[1] At age 19 he completed his first novel Flowers and Shadows (1980), written in the tradition of Realism.[1]
In 1978 Ben came back to England on a government grant to study comparative literature, embarking his studies at the University of Essex.[2] Ben had little money and often slept on floors and was unable to complete his degree for lack of funds.[1] He was a poetry editor of West Africa and worked also for the BBC.[1] In 1984 one of his stories was selected by Peter Ackroyd in the PEN New Fiction contest.[1]
Literary career
Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's leading writers.[1] His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, has been called the classic magical realist novel of West Africa.[1]
He has been described as a magic realist, although he has shrugged off that tag, preferring to see his work as "dream-logic" narrative.[2]
- "I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. You can't use Jane Austen to speak about African reality. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality."[2]
His literary influences were first formed by the books in his father's library, including Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.[2] He was also influenced by his mother's storytelling: "If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story."[2] His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.[2]
Okri is a Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN. He is also a member of the United Kingdom's Royal National Theatre. He lives in London.
Awards and honors
- 1987 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region, Best Book) - Incidents at the Shrine
- 1987 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction - Incidents at the Shrine
- 1988 Guardian Fiction Prize - Stars of the New Curfew (shortlisted)
- 1991 Booker Prize - The Famished Road
- 1993 Chianti Ruffino-Antico Fattore International Literary Prize - The Famished Road
- 1994 Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy) -The Famished Road
- 1995 Crystal Award (World Economic Forum)
- 1997 Honorary Doctorate, awarded by University of Westminster
- 2000 Premio Palmi (Italy) - Dangerous Love
- 2001 Order of the British Empire (OBE)
- 2002 Honorary Doctorate, awarded by University of Essex
- 2008 International Literary Award Novi Sad (International Novi Sad Literature Festival, Serbia).
- 2010 Honorary Doctorate, awarded by School of Oriental and African Studies
Bibliography
- Flowers and Shadows (novel); Longman, 1980
- The Landscapes Within (novel); Longman, 1981
- Incidents at the Shrine (novel); Heinemann, 1986
- Stars of the New Curfew (short stories); Secker & Warburg, 1988
- The Famished Road (novel); Cape, 1991
- An African Elegy (poetry); Cape, 1992
- Songs of Enchantment (novel); Cape, 1993
- Astonishing the Gods (novel); Phoenix House, 1995
- Birds of Heaven; Orion, 1995
- Dangerous Love (novel); Phoenix House, 1996
- A Way of Being Free (essays); Phoenix House, 1997
- Infinite Riches (novel); Phoenix House, 1998
- Mental Fight (poetry); Phoenix House, 1999
- In Arcadia (novel); Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002
- Starbook (novel); Rider, 2007
- Tales of Freedom (short stories); Rider, 2009
- A Time for New Dreams (essays); Rider, 2011
References
External links
- Ben Okri's official Facebook Page
- Ben Okri's MySpace page
- The Ben Okri Bibliography - an extensive bibliography of works by and about Ben Okri. Also includes a short biography and an introduction to his work.
- Ben Okri - biography with short descriptions of selected works
- Audio: Ben Okri in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum
- Ben Okri on RSA Audio
Categories:- 1959 births
- Living people
- Nigerian novelists
- Nigerian writers
- Booker Prize winners
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
- Alumni of the University of Essex
- English people of Nigerian descent
- Magic realism writers
- Black British writers
- Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
