Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Infinite Riches: A Novel
    Songs of Enchantment: A Novel
    The Famished Road: A Novel
    Ebook series3 titles

    The Famished Road Trilogy Series

    By Ben Okri

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this series

    Set in an African village, this follow-up to the Man Booker Prize–winning novel is “sometimes whimsical, sometimes bawdy . . . Fraught with wild visions” (The Times).
     
    “All is not well in the African village where Azaro lives. The child narrator of poet and novelist Okri’s The Famished Road, who had outwitted death in the previous book, again relates the oppressive events that continue to plague his village and his family. While political factionalization shatters the community's cohesiveness, the prodigious bar owner Madame Koto, chief exponent of the ‘Party of the Rich,’ alternately exudes portentous metaphysical malaise and miraculous erotic force. Little Azaro, himself touched and distracted by a series of animuses, follows the heels of ‘dad,’ who is a resounding vessel, by turns, of cantankerous egotism and abased self-sacrifice. This Nigerian epic reveals a violent provincial world, opaque with magical spirits which place horrendous ethical demands on fragile and fickle humanity, as if to test each individual for a thread of virtuous constancy at the core. Events drench the essentially linear narrative with all the ruthless sensuousness of a tropical storm, and Okri’s prose is lucid and deft.” —Publishers Weekly
     
    “Okri conjures up the fabulous with the same ease as he affectingly details the ways of the human spirit in a lovingly evoked African setting teeming with life—both real and mythic . . . Stunning.” —Kirkus Reviews
     
    “Once again we’re bedazzled and bedeviled by Okri’s phantasmagoric prose and the strange and wondrous sensibility of Azaro, a spirit-child living in a poor African village.” —Booklist
     
    “Both a love story and an account of the political turmoil between the parties of Rich and Poor.” —The Independent
     
    “Passages of extraordinary beauty . . . Okri paints a convincing surrealist picture.” —The Sunday Times
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMar 25, 2017
    Infinite Riches: A Novel
    Songs of Enchantment: A Novel
    The Famished Road: A Novel

    Titles in the series (3)

    • The Famished Road: A Novel
      The Famished Road: A Novel

      The Famished Road: A Novel

      Ben Okri
      4/5 - 11 ratings
      4/5 - 11 ratings

      Winner of the Man Booker Prize: “Okri shares with García Márquez a vision of the world as one of infinite possibility. . . . A masterpiece” (The Boston Sunday Globe). Azaro is a spirit child, an abiku, existing, according to the African tradition, between life and death. Born into the human world, he must experience its joys and tragedies. His spirit companions come to him often, hounding him to leave his mortal world and join them in their idyllic one. Azaro foresees a trying life ahead, but he is born smiling. This is his story.   When President Bill Clinton first went to Africa he quoted from The Famished Road, which has inspired literature, art, politics, and pop songs—and even been referenced in an episode of The Simpsons. A transformative story for all ages and all times, it means many things to many people. Few contemporary novels have aroused as much passion as this one. Indeed, twenty-five years after its breakout publication, the iconic story of Azaro’s travels continues to mesmerize new generations.   For readers of Things Fall Apart or One Hundred Years of Solitude, this Man Booker Prize–winning blend of fabulism and gritty realism by the Nigerian author of Astonishing the Gods and Dangerous Love is a “dazzling, hypnotic” journey through Africa that “weaves the humblest detail with the most extravagant flight of fancy to create an astonishing fictional tapestry” (San Francisco Chronicle). Already considered a classic of world literature, it is “a masterpiece if ever one existed” (The Boston Sunday Globe).  

      Winner of the Man Booker Prize: “Okri shares with García Márquez a vision of the world as one of infinite possibility. . . . A masterpiece” (The Boston Sunday Globe). Azaro is a spirit child, an abiku, existing, according to the African tradition, between life and death. Born into the human world, he must experience its joys and tragedies. His spirit companions come to him often, hounding him to leave his mortal world and join them in their idyllic one. Azaro foresees a trying life ahead, but he is born smiling. This is his story.   When President Bill Clinton first went to Africa he quoted from The Famished Road, which has inspired literature, art, politics, and pop songs—and even been referenced in an episode of The Simpsons. A transformative story for all ages and all times, it means many things to many people. Few contemporary novels have aroused as much passion as this one. Indeed, twenty-five years after its breakout publication, the iconic story of Azaro’s travels continues to mesmerize new generations.   For readers of Things Fall Apart or One Hundred Years of Solitude, this Man Booker Prize–winning blend of fabulism and gritty realism by the Nigerian author of Astonishing the Gods and Dangerous Love is a “dazzling, hypnotic” journey through Africa that “weaves the humblest detail with the most extravagant flight of fancy to create an astonishing fictional tapestry” (San Francisco Chronicle). Already considered a classic of world literature, it is “a masterpiece if ever one existed” (The Boston Sunday Globe).  

    • Infinite Riches: A Novel
      Infinite Riches: A Novel

      Infinite Riches: A Novel

      Ben Okri
      0 ratings
      0 ratings

      A potent combination of political, metaphorical, and mythical storytelling” from the prizewinning author of The Freedom Artist (The Scotsman). “Who can be certain where the end begins?” said Dad, shortly before he was arrested for the murder of the carpenter . . . This novel, the conclusion to the trilogy that began with the Man Booker Prize winner The Famished Road, follows the spirit-child Azaro, who travels between the worlds of the living and the dead. Set against the backdrop of a Nigerian village in turmoil, it is a novel about the multiple forms that wealth and power can take, the challenges of the physical world, and the wonders of the mystical world, by an author who has earned numerous literary honors and whose “writing is hailed for its intelligence, tenderness, poeticism and luminosity” (Financial Times). “Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three—literature, culture, and vision—are profoundly interwoven.” —Ali Smith, author of Autumn

      A potent combination of political, metaphorical, and mythical storytelling” from the prizewinning author of The Freedom Artist (The Scotsman). “Who can be certain where the end begins?” said Dad, shortly before he was arrested for the murder of the carpenter . . . This novel, the conclusion to the trilogy that began with the Man Booker Prize winner The Famished Road, follows the spirit-child Azaro, who travels between the worlds of the living and the dead. Set against the backdrop of a Nigerian village in turmoil, it is a novel about the multiple forms that wealth and power can take, the challenges of the physical world, and the wonders of the mystical world, by an author who has earned numerous literary honors and whose “writing is hailed for its intelligence, tenderness, poeticism and luminosity” (Financial Times). “Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three—literature, culture, and vision—are profoundly interwoven.” —Ali Smith, author of Autumn

    • Songs of Enchantment: A Novel
      Songs of Enchantment: A Novel

      Songs of Enchantment: A Novel

      Ben Okri
      5/5 - 1 rating
      5/5 - 1 rating

      Set in an African village, this follow-up to the Man Booker Prize–winning novel is “sometimes whimsical, sometimes bawdy . . . Fraught with wild visions” (The Times).   “All is not well in the African village where Azaro lives. The child narrator of poet and novelist Okri’s The Famished Road, who had outwitted death in the previous book, again relates the oppressive events that continue to plague his village and his family. While political factionalization shatters the community's cohesiveness, the prodigious bar owner Madame Koto, chief exponent of the ‘Party of the Rich,’ alternately exudes portentous metaphysical malaise and miraculous erotic force. Little Azaro, himself touched and distracted by a series of animuses, follows the heels of ‘dad,’ who is a resounding vessel, by turns, of cantankerous egotism and abased self-sacrifice. This Nigerian epic reveals a violent provincial world, opaque with magical spirits which place horrendous ethical demands on fragile and fickle humanity, as if to test each individual for a thread of virtuous constancy at the core. Events drench the essentially linear narrative with all the ruthless sensuousness of a tropical storm, and Okri’s prose is lucid and deft.” —Publishers Weekly   “Okri conjures up the fabulous with the same ease as he affectingly details the ways of the human spirit in a lovingly evoked African setting teeming with life—both real and mythic . . . Stunning.” —Kirkus Reviews   “Once again we’re bedazzled and bedeviled by Okri’s phantasmagoric prose and the strange and wondrous sensibility of Azaro, a spirit-child living in a poor African village.” —Booklist   “Both a love story and an account of the political turmoil between the parties of Rich and Poor.” —The Independent   “Passages of extraordinary beauty . . . Okri paints a convincing surrealist picture.” —The Sunday Times

      Set in an African village, this follow-up to the Man Booker Prize–winning novel is “sometimes whimsical, sometimes bawdy . . . Fraught with wild visions” (The Times).   “All is not well in the African village where Azaro lives. The child narrator of poet and novelist Okri’s The Famished Road, who had outwitted death in the previous book, again relates the oppressive events that continue to plague his village and his family. While political factionalization shatters the community's cohesiveness, the prodigious bar owner Madame Koto, chief exponent of the ‘Party of the Rich,’ alternately exudes portentous metaphysical malaise and miraculous erotic force. Little Azaro, himself touched and distracted by a series of animuses, follows the heels of ‘dad,’ who is a resounding vessel, by turns, of cantankerous egotism and abased self-sacrifice. This Nigerian epic reveals a violent provincial world, opaque with magical spirits which place horrendous ethical demands on fragile and fickle humanity, as if to test each individual for a thread of virtuous constancy at the core. Events drench the essentially linear narrative with all the ruthless sensuousness of a tropical storm, and Okri’s prose is lucid and deft.” —Publishers Weekly   “Okri conjures up the fabulous with the same ease as he affectingly details the ways of the human spirit in a lovingly evoked African setting teeming with life—both real and mythic . . . Stunning.” —Kirkus Reviews   “Once again we’re bedazzled and bedeviled by Okri’s phantasmagoric prose and the strange and wondrous sensibility of Azaro, a spirit-child living in a poor African village.” —Booklist   “Both a love story and an account of the political turmoil between the parties of Rich and Poor.” —The Independent   “Passages of extraordinary beauty . . . Okri paints a convincing surrealist picture.” —The Sunday Times

    Author

    Ben Okri

    Sir Ben Okri was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw first-hand the consequences of war, and London. He has won many awards over the years, including the Booker Prize for Fiction, and is also an acclaimed essayist, playwright, and poet. In 2019 Astonishing the Gods was named as one of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'.

    Read more from Ben Okri

    Related to The Famished Road Trilogy

    Related ebooks

    Magical Realism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Akwaeke Emezi

      May 28, 2021

      Akwaeke Emezi
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Her Dark Material

      Feb 7, 2021

      Paradise Beach, Barbados, in the 1980s. The powdery sand is the palest pink, the water is the regulation limpid blue, the coconut palms sway, but behind the tourist postcard lies another world, a mostly black world of poverty, violence and desperatio

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Year in Reading: Nadia Owusu

      Dec 15, 2020

      If anyone were to ask me for recommendations of books for America’s new leaders to read before they are sworn in, this collection would be on my list. The post A Year in Reading: Nadia Owusu appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      NEWS AND Trends

      Apr 12, 2023

      NEWS AND Trends
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Facing Racism

      Jun 26, 2020

      Facing Racism
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Year in Reading: Robert Jones, Jr.

      Dec 2, 2021

      This year I realized that there is a distinct difference between reading books as an average reader and as someone whose own book is now out in the world, The post A Year in Reading: Robert Jones, Jr. appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Bookseller’s Elegy

      Jul 19, 2017

      What can you do when a customer wants a book that you not only find objectionable but also believe actually dangerous in the lessons it portends amidst such a politically precarious time? The post A Bookseller’s Elegy appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Year in Reading: Kali Fajardo-Anstine

      Dec 4, 2019

      It was a beautiful year for books, and I was so honored to read these transformative words. Thank you to their authors. The post A Year in Reading: Kali Fajardo-Anstine appeared first on The Millions.

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Akwaeke Emezi

      May 28, 2021

      Akwaeke Emezi
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Resistance and Reclamation

      Oct 13, 2021

      IN LATE 2016, adoptee poet and Kundiman fellow Leah Silvieus initiated a research project about the ways in which emerging adoptee poets contend with identity, loss, culture, and family in their work. She sent a query through the Kundiman network, lo

      17 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Must-Read Poetry: May 2019

      May 2, 2019

      Get a taste of six new collections, including the latest from Brooklyn's poet laureate Tina Chang. The post Must-Read Poetry: May 2019 appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Year in Reading: Chantal V. Johnson

      Dec 2, 2022

      Chantal V. Johnson reflects on 2022 through the books she read. The post A Year in Reading: Chantal V. Johnson appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      WORLD of WONDERS

      Aug 12, 2020

      WORLD of WONDERS
      17 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Famished Road Trilogy

    3.5/5

    332 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words