THE FAMISHED ROAD

The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself and the tale he tells are full of sadness and tragedy, but inexplicably he is born with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the realm of the dead, he is resurrected to confront the tension between the land of the living, often joyful despite violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits.

About The Author
Ben Okri was born in 1959 in northern Nigeria. He grew up in London before returning to Nigeria with his family in 1968. He left the country when a grant from the Nigerian government enabled him to read Comparative Literature at Essex University in England. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1987, and was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Westminster (1997) and Essex (2002). In 1991 Okri was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction for his third novel The Famished Road (1991). In addition to numerous novels, he is the author of a collection of poems, An African Elegy (1992) and an epic poem, Mental Flight (1999). Ben Okri is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN and was awarded an OBE in 2001. He lives in London.