You have never read a novel like this one. Winner of the 1991 Booker Prize for fiction, The Famished Road tells the story of Azaro, a spirit-child. Though spirit-children rarely stay long in the painful world of the living, when Azaro is born he chooses to fight death: "I wanted", he says, "to make happy the bruised face of the woman who would become my mother." Survival in his chaotic African village is a struggle, though. Azaro and his family must contend with hunger, disease and violence, as well as the boy's spirit- companions, who are constantly trying to trick him back into their world. Okri fills his tale with unforgettable images and characters: the bereaved policeman and his wife, who try to adopt Azaro and dress him in their dead son's clothes; the photographer who documents life in the village and displays his pictures in a cabinet by the roadside; Madame Koto, "plump as a mighty fruit", who runs the local bar; the King of the Road, who gets hungrier the more he eats.

At the heart of this hypnotic novel are the mysteries of love and human survival. "It is more difficult to love than to die", says Azaro's father, and indeed, it is love that brings real sharpness to suffering here. As the story moves toward its climax, Azaro must face the consequences of choosing to live, of choosing to walk the road of hunger rather than return to the benign land of spirits. The Famished Road is worth reading for its last line alone, which must be one of the most devastating endings in contemporary literature (but don't skip ahead). -- R. Ellis

Didn't know what to expect, 29 Oct 2008
I have to admit I didn't finish this book, I felt as if I was wasting time and could be reading a Classic, which is what I expected this to be. I believe that Ben Okri is a talented writer, but just couldn't get into his spiritual world. So it was a disappointment to me. Suffice to say that this book is not for everyone.

Rewards persistence, 20 Feb 2007
Firstly, this book demands a bit of persistence. Okri begins with a series of hallucinatory passages as we follow the picaresque adventures of 'spirit child' Azaro. These adventures are pretty inconsequential, while the only reason he is a spirit child seems to be as a metaphor for Nigeria, as revealed towards the end: "Our country is an abiku country. Like the spirit-child, it keeps coming and going. One day it will decide to remain. It will become strong."

However, once the political parties descend on the ghetto, and once Azaro's dad takes it into his mind to become a boxer, the book gains direction and pace, and becomes a fascinating read. Even the spirits seem to gain more purpose. You finally begin to gain a sense of the strain that poverty places on the family, and the struggles that the country as a whole faces. Perhaps the spirits and magical realism are there to lessen the impact of such a tragic story.

As Azaro's dad fails to make much difference to the country despite his vision his ultimate insight into the reason comes as we near the book's end. "It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love."

Not satisfying, 17 May 2006
After a promising opening, I was disappointed with this novel. I realise this is somewhat due to cultural differences, but I found it difficult to care about what happened to the characters. The events are sometimes disconnected and random. That may be the author's point about the lives he is portraying, but every time I put the book down I found it more difficult to pick it up again until I finally stopped reading. I just couldn't connect with this novel. The storyline was too surreal and otherwordly for me.

My six pen'orth, 15 Nov 2003
Like many of the reviewers I agree at times it does feel circular and repetitive (the summary by the Columbian reader 'Azaro goes to Madam Koto's bar, gets scared and runs away' made me laugh) but then much of how we behave in life is the same - our blind, circular behaviour patterns keep counsellors and psychiatrists in business. From a philosophical point of view, anyone who has studied Buddhism will see the parallels. Azaro's Dad literally punches his way to the path to enlightenment. The book made me question what I see and wonder what I can't see, especially in crowded places like the tube. What must it be like to be able to see spirits and auras? If you let yourself go, this book allows you to lose yourself and your own space time continuum will become confused. Hours pass like minutes. And the peripheral element of the politics of poverty is moving. Okri could have written a diatribe about the injustice of third world debt or the iniquity of the luxurious life we live in the West compared to the struggle to survive in poor countries. There's enough everything for everyone. In a Utopian world everyone would share and be content. But he looks at it through the eyes of a child who sees that often when we get what we think we want, we are still discontent, for example his parents argue about how to spend an unexpected windfall, the compound residents fight over free food which turns out to be rotten anyway, grown ups destroy what they can't have. I do think it's one of those books though that if you're not hooked by page 10, you're not going to get into it at all and I can see that a lot of people would not. But for me, I can't wait to read the sequels.

Over-long and repetitive, 01 Feb 2003
There is a sense that Okri wanted to do too many things in this novel and subsequently didn't achieve any of them. Firstly, the whole subject of "the spirit child" seemed out of place with the rest of the story and generally the novel's harsh reality did not mix well with the nods to Nigerian myth throughout the book. Where other authors using magical realism succeed such as Garcia Marquez in One Hundred Years Of Solitude and to a lesser degree De Bernieres's South American trilogy Okri's surrealism doesn't fit, possibly because it does not propel the story anywhere.
The plot itself seemed repetitious and its portrayal of poor African life seemed quite sparse when diluted with nonsensical mysticism. Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures gives a more direct description of African life and I would suggest that as a better alternative if you are interested in social interaction and clear narrative.
TFR would have been a much less meandering and infuriating book if two hundred pages plus were edited out. As it is TFR is a confusing study of poor Nigerian life and mysticism that the latter will only make sense to those with former knowledge of the subject.

Didn't know what to expect, 29 Oct 2008
I have to admit I didn't finish this book, I felt as if I was wasting time and could be reading a Classic, which is what I expected this to be. I believe that Ben Okri is a talented writer, but just couldn't get into his spiritual world. So it was a disappointment to me. Suffice to say that this book is not for everyone.

Rewards persistence, 20 Feb 2007
Firstly, this book demands a bit of persistence. Okri begins with a series of hallucinatory passages as we follow the picaresque adventures of 'spirit child' Azaro. These adventures are pretty inconsequential, while the only reason he is a spirit child seems to be as a metaphor for Nigeria, as revealed towards the end: "Our country is an abiku country. Like the spirit-child, it keeps coming and going. One day it will decide to remain. It will become strong."

However, once the political parties descend on the ghetto, and once Azaro's dad takes it into his mind to become a boxer, the book gains direction and pace, and becomes a fascinating read. Even the spirits seem to gain more purpose. You finally begin to gain a sense of the strain that poverty places on the family, and the struggles that the country as a whole faces. Perhaps the spirits and magical realism are there to lessen the impact of such a tragic story.

As Azaro's dad fails to make much difference to the country despite his vision his ultimate insight into the reason comes as we near the book's end. "It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love."

Not satisfying, 17 May 2006
After a promising opening, I was disappointed with this novel. I realise this is somewhat due to cultural differences, but I found it difficult to care about what happened to the characters. The events are sometimes disconnected and random. That may be the author's point about the lives he is portraying, but every time I put the book down I found it more difficult to pick it up again until I finally stopped reading. I just couldn't connect with this novel. The storyline was too surreal and otherwordly for me.

My six pen'orth, 15 Nov 2003
Like many of the reviewers I agree at times it does feel circular and repetitive (the summary by the Columbian reader 'Azaro goes to Madam Koto's bar, gets scared and runs away' made me laugh) but then much of how we behave in life is the same - our blind, circular behaviour patterns keep counsellors and psychiatrists in business. From a philosophical point of view, anyone who has studied Buddhism will see the parallels. Azaro's Dad literally punches his way to the path to enlightenment. The book made me question what I see and wonder what I can't see, especially in crowded places like the tube. What must it be like to be able to see spirits and auras? If you let yourself go, this book allows you to lose yourself and your own space time continuum will become confused. Hours pass like minutes. And the peripheral element of the politics of poverty is moving. Okri could have written a diatribe about the injustice of third world debt or the iniquity of the luxurious life we live in the West compared to the struggle to survive in poor countries. There's enough everything for everyone. In a Utopian world everyone would share and be content. But he looks at it through the eyes of a child who sees that often when we get what we think we want, we are still discontent, for example his parents argue about how to spend an unexpected windfall, the compound residents fight over free food which turns out to be rotten anyway, grown ups destroy what they can't have. I do think it's one of those books though that if you're not hooked by page 10, you're not going to get into it at all and I can see that a lot of people would not. But for me, I can't wait to read the sequels.

Over-long and repetitive, 01 Feb 2003
There is a sense that Okri wanted to do too many things in this novel and subsequently didn't achieve any of them. Firstly, the whole subject of "the spirit child" seemed out of place with the rest of the story and generally the novel's harsh reality did not mix well with the nods to Nigerian myth throughout the book. Where other authors using magical realism succeed such as Garcia Marquez in One Hundred Years Of Solitude and to a lesser degree De Bernieres's South American trilogy Okri's surrealism doesn't fit, possibly because it does not propel the story anywhere.
The plot itself seemed repetitious and its portrayal of poor African life seemed quite sparse when diluted with nonsensical mysticism. Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures gives a more direct description of African life and I would suggest that as a better alternative if you are interested in social interaction and clear narrative.
TFR would have been a much less meandering and infuriating book if two hundred pages plus were edited out. As it is TFR is a confusing study of poor Nigerian life and mysticism that the latter will only make sense to those with former knowledge of the subject.

Spectacular, 28 Dec 2004
Ben Okri presents many pieces of work in this collection that urge us towards by hope, laughter, meaning and purpose in life. A very conviction driven piece of work all in all, it makes you think of the sort of life that would be possible, if we all aspired to attain the higher ideals in life or the more noble goals that we often lose sight of so easily, and so early in the course of our harrowed lives. Very inspiring.

An epic poem, which is powerful but sensitive., 02 Dec 2001
Ben Okri has managed to produce a brilliant thought-provoking poem encompassing thoughts as we move into a new century. "Never again will we stand at the threshold of a new age". We won't. Buy this poem.

Well written poetical wonder, 13 Jul 2000
Okri's 'Mental Fight' poem humanizes the Millennium. Peeling off the hype and jargon that surrounds it, he lays mankind's achievements, failures and potential bare for all to see. This well written poetical wonder, with its healthy dose of perspective, will make you sit up and think. Thoroughly uplifting and readable!

A great book for fanatics and cynics alike., 28 Nov 1999
This is a great book for both Millennium fantatics and cynics - which is perhaps more significant. If you're wondering how to survive the hype of the build up to the "Magic Moment", then read this poem. It's a real mind-opener - and the optimism is infectious.

Didn't know what to expect, 29 Oct 2008
I have to admit I didn't finish this book, I felt as if I was wasting time and could be reading a Classic, which is what I expected this to be. I believe that Ben Okri is a talented writer, but just couldn't get into his spiritual world. So it was a disappointment to me. Suffice to say that this book is not for everyone.

Rewards persistence, 20 Feb 2007
Firstly, this book demands a bit of persistence. Okri begins with a series of hallucinatory passages as we follow the picaresque adventures of 'spirit child' Azaro. These adventures are pretty inconsequential, while the only reason he is a spirit child seems to be as a metaphor for Nigeria, as revealed towards the end: "Our country is an abiku country. Like the spirit-child, it keeps coming and going. One day it will decide to remain. It will become strong."

However, once the political parties descend on the ghetto, and once Azaro's dad takes it into his mind to become a boxer, the book gains direction and pace, and becomes a fascinating read. Even the spirits seem to gain more purpose. You finally begin to gain a sense of the strain that poverty places on the family, and the struggles that the country as a whole faces. Perhaps the spirits and magical realism are there to lessen the impact of such a tragic story.

As Azaro's dad fails to make much difference to the country despite his vision his ultimate insight into the reason comes as we near the book's end. "It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love."

Not satisfying, 17 May 2006
After a promising opening, I was disappointed with this novel. I realise this is somewhat due to cultural differences, but I found it difficult to care about what happened to the characters. The events are sometimes disconnected and random. That may be the author's point about the lives he is portraying, but every time I put the book down I found it more difficult to pick it up again until I finally stopped reading. I just couldn't connect with this novel. The storyline was too surreal and otherwordly for me.

My six pen'orth, 15 Nov 2003
Like many of the reviewers I agree at times it does feel circular and repetitive (the summary by the Columbian reader 'Azaro goes to Madam Koto's bar, gets scared and runs away' made me laugh) but then much of how we behave in life is the same - our blind, circular behaviour patterns keep counsellors and psychiatrists in business. From a philosophical point of view, anyone who has studied Buddhism will see the parallels. Azaro's Dad literally punches his way to the path to enlightenment. The book made me question what I see and wonder what I can't see, especially in crowded places like the tube. What must it be like to be able to see spirits and auras? If you let yourself go, this book allows you to lose yourself and your own space time continuum will become confused. Hours pass like minutes. And the peripheral element of the politics of poverty is moving. Okri could have written a diatribe about the injustice of third world debt or the iniquity of the luxurious life we live in the West compared to the struggle to survive in poor countries. There's enough everything for everyone. In a Utopian world everyone would share and be content. But he looks at it through the eyes of a child who sees that often when we get what we think we want, we are still discontent, for example his parents argue about how to spend an unexpected windfall, the compound residents fight over free food which turns out to be rotten anyway, grown ups destroy what they can't have. I do think it's one of those books though that if you're not hooked by page 10, you're not going to get into it at all and I can see that a lot of people would not. But for me, I can't wait to read the sequels.

Over-long and repetitive, 01 Feb 2003
There is a sense that Okri wanted to do too many things in this novel and subsequently didn't achieve any of them. Firstly, the whole subject of "the spirit child" seemed out of place with the rest of the story and generally the novel's harsh reality did not mix well with the nods to Nigerian myth throughout the book. Where other authors using magical realism succeed such as Garcia Marquez in One Hundred Years Of Solitude and to a lesser degree De Bernieres's South American trilogy Okri's surrealism doesn't fit, possibly because it does not propel the story anywhere.
The plot itself seemed repetitious and its portrayal of poor African life seemed quite sparse when diluted with nonsensical mysticism. Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures gives a more direct description of African life and I would suggest that as a better alternative if you are interested in social interaction and clear narrative.
TFR would have been a much less meandering and infuriating book if two hundred pages plus were edited out. As it is TFR is a confusing study of poor Nigerian life and mysticism that the latter will only make sense to those with former knowledge of the subject.

Spectacular, 28 Dec 2004
Ben Okri presents many pieces of work in this collection that urge us towards by hope, laughter, meaning and purpose in life. A very conviction driven piece of work all in all, it makes you think of the sort of life that would be possible, if we all aspired to attain the higher ideals in life or the more noble goals that we often lose sight of so easily, and so early in the course of our harrowed lives. Very inspiring.

An epic poem, which is powerful but sensitive., 02 Dec 2001
Ben Okri has managed to produce a brilliant thought-provoking poem encompassing thoughts as we move into a new century. "Never again will we stand at the threshold of a new age". We won't. Buy this poem.

Well written poetical wonder, 13 Jul 2000
Okri's 'Mental Fight' poem humanizes the Millennium. Peeling off the hype and jargon that surrounds it, he lays mankind's achievements, failures and potential bare for all to see. This well written poetical wonder, with its healthy dose of perspective, will make you sit up and think. Thoroughly uplifting and readable!

A great book for fanatics and cynics alike., 28 Nov 1999
This is a great book for both Millennium fantatics and cynics - which is perhaps more significant. If you're wondering how to survive the hype of the build up to the "Magic Moment", then read this poem. It's a real mind-opener - and the optimism is infectious.

The invisibilty of the blessed, 04 Jul 2008
This book is Ben Okri's small version of Dante's Divina Commedia (DC), with its three parts introduced by three guides. Okri's version describes only the Heaven part of the DC: ` a universal civilization of justice and love'; `palaces of wisdom, libraries of the infinite, cathedrals of joy, courts of divine laws, streets of bliss, cupolas of nobility.' `It is a civic society in which the highest possibilities of the inhabitants could be realized.'

But, all is not glitter, glance and harmony in his Heaven. Perfection becomes boring: `excessive beauty would make you miserable. It would become like hell: an inferno of perfections, a nightmare composed entirely of beautiful things.' `One can't live in perfection the whole time.' `Purity after a while is boring.'
Moreover, there is sexual frustration: `I have hungered for a man such as you for many long years.'

Ben Okri's book contains also some anti-rational romantic reflexes: `Understanding often leads to ignorance, especially when it comes too soon.' And, Plato is not far away: `What you think is what becomes real,' and `a city is a vast network of thoughts.'

All in all, Ben Okri's tale is too abstract. His inspirator painted not only a brilliant picture of the afterworld, but discussed also such burning actual item as the separation between secular and religious power, between Church and State.

This is a minor book by an otherwise great writer.


Simple, 13 Jul 2006
Astonishing the Gods is a fun little aside; a slim volume of myth and symbolism devoid of roots or substance. Its allegorical meanings, if it has any, are as much a rose tinted eulogy to the creative act as they are a modern evocation of an age old common philosophy - of achieving grace or enlightenment via the rejection of desire and self. Its failings are in the lyrical but vacuous prose so beloved of its fans. Much of its imagery may well have been purloined from first drafts for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - floating palaces, fiery bridges, unicorns and mists. It is an imagery where every smell has a colour and every colour a taste, which is to say it is an imagery equally as unimaginative as its "if a tree fell in the woods" dialogue. Its overall philosophy is one familiar to anyone who has seen the original 60s series of Star Trek.
Still, it is a book difficult to be grumpy with, in much the same way you wouldn't be overly critical of a child's drawing of a sunny day.


Can't help the comparisons to Garcia Marquez, 14 Dec 2001
This book is fantastic. I've been a fan of Ben Okri's for a while, but this one is awesome. Both in the fantastic and soaring imagery and the use of language. I see a Nobel Prize in this man's future. Buy it, read it, and best of all, give it.

Positively brilliant, 13 Mar 2001
I found an uncorrected proof edition in a little second hand bookshop near where I live, and finished it that very day. I have yet to investigate the deeper meanings of the book for myself, but it was a wonderful story and an excellent insight into how we define ourselves and our environment.

Another captivating novel from Okri, 08 Nov 2000
I was hooked from the first line that Okri wrote. The book follows one man's search for visibility on a mystical island, you travel with him through the city and onwards to his final destination. A well written novel that i found hard to put down, but could also pick up and read anytime. Okri weaves a wonderful tale full of emotion and courage in a search for visiblity and life.

Didn't know what to expect, 29 Oct 2008
I have to admit I didn't finish this book, I felt as if I was wasting time and could be reading a Classic, which is what I expected this to be. I believe that Ben Okri is a talented writer, but just couldn't get into his spiritual world. So it was a disappointment to me. Suffice to say that this book is not for everyone.

Rewards persistence, 20 Feb 2007
Firstly, this book demands a bit of persistence. Okri begins with a series of hallucinatory passages as we follow the picaresque adventures of 'spirit child' Azaro. These adventures are pretty inconsequential, while the only reason he is a spirit child seems to be as a metaphor for Nigeria, as revealed towards the end: "Our country is an abiku country. Like the spirit-child, it keeps coming and going. One day it will decide to remain. It will become strong."

However, once the political parties descend on the ghetto, and once Azaro's dad takes it into his mind to become a boxer, the book gains direction and pace, and becomes a fascinating read. Even the spirits seem to gain more purpose. You finally begin to gain a sense of the strain that poverty places on the family, and the struggles that the country as a whole faces. Perhaps the spirits and magical realism are there to lessen the impact of such a tragic story.

As Azaro's dad fails to make much difference to the country despite his vision his ultimate insight into the reason comes as we near the book's end. "It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love."

Not satisfying, 17 May 2006
After a promising opening, I was disappointed with this novel. I realise this is somewhat due to cultural differences, but I found it difficult to care about what happened to the characters. The events are sometimes disconnected and random. That may be the author's point about the lives he is portraying, but every time I put the book down I found it more difficult to pick it up again until I finally stopped reading. I just couldn't connect with this novel. The storyline was too surreal and otherwordly for me.

My six pen'orth, 15 Nov 2003
Like many of the reviewers I agree at times it does feel circular and repetitive (the summary by the Columbian reader 'Azaro goes to Madam Koto's bar, gets scared and runs away' made me laugh) but then much of how we behave in life is the same - our blind, circular behaviour patterns keep counsellors and psychiatrists in business. From a philosophical point of view, anyone who has studied Buddhism will see the parallels. Azaro's Dad literally punches his way to the path to enlightenment. The book made me question what I see and wonder what I can't see, especially in crowded places like the tube. What must it be like to be able to see spirits and auras? If you let yourself go, this book allows you to lose yourself and your own space time continuum will become confused. Hours pass like minutes. And the peripheral element of the politics of poverty is moving. Okri could have written a diatribe about the injustice of third world debt or the iniquity of the luxurious life we live in the West compared to the struggle to survive in poor countries. There's enough everything for everyone. In a Utopian world everyone would share and be content. But he looks at it through the eyes of a child who sees that often when we get what we think we want, we are still discontent, for example his parents argue about how to spend an unexpected windfall, the compound residents fight over free food which turns out to be rotten anyway, grown ups destroy what they can't have. I do think it's one of those books though that if you're not hooked by page 10, you're not going to get into it at all and I can see that a lot of people would not. But for me, I can't wait to read the sequels.

Over-long and repetitive, 01 Feb 2003
There is a sense that Okri wanted to do too many things in this novel and subsequently didn't achieve any of them. Firstly, the whole subject of "the spirit child" seemed out of place with the rest of the story and generally the novel's harsh reality did not mix well with the nods to Nigerian myth throughout the book. Where other authors using magical realism succeed such as Garcia Marquez in One Hundred Years Of Solitude and to a lesser degree De Bernieres's South American trilogy Okri's surrealism doesn't fit, possibly because it does not propel the story anywhere.
The plot itself seemed repetitious and its portrayal of poor African life seemed quite sparse when diluted with nonsensical mysticism. Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures gives a more direct description of African life and I would suggest that as a better alternative if you are interested in social interaction and clear narrative.
TFR would have been a much less meandering and infuriating book if two hundred pages plus were edited out. As it is TFR is a confusing study of poor Nigerian life and mysticism that the latter will only make sense to those with former knowledge of the subject.

Spectacular, 28 Dec 2004
Ben Okri presents many pieces of work in this collection that urge us towards by hope, laughter, meaning and purpose in life. A very conviction driven piece of work all in all, it makes you think of the sort of life that would be possible, if we all aspired to attain the higher ideals in life or the more noble goals that we often lose sight of so easily, and so early in the course of our harrowed lives. Very inspiring.

An epic poem, which is powerful but sensitive., 02 Dec 2001
Ben Okri has managed to produce a brilliant thought-provoking poem encompassing thoughts as we move into a new century. "Never again will we stand at the threshold of a new age". We won't. Buy this poem.

Well written poetical wonder, 13 Jul 2000
Okri's 'Mental Fight' poem humanizes the Millennium. Peeling off the hype and jargon that surrounds it, he lays mankind's achievements, failures and potential bare for all to see. This well written poetical wonder, with its healthy dose of perspective, will make you sit up and think. Thoroughly uplifting and readable!

A great book for fanatics and cynics alike., 28 Nov 1999
This is a great book for both Millennium fantatics and cynics - which is perhaps more significant. If you're wondering how to survive the hype of the build up to the "Magic Moment", then read this poem. It's a real mind-opener - and the optimism is infectious.

The invisibilty of the blessed, 04 Jul 2008
This book is Ben Okri's small version of Dante's Divina Commedia (DC), with its three parts introduced by three guides. Okri's version describes only the Heaven part of the DC: ` a universal civilization of justice and love'; `palaces of wisdom, libraries of the infinite, cathedrals of joy, courts of divine laws, streets of bliss, cupolas of nobility.' `It is a civic society in which the highest possibilities of the inhabitants could be realized.'

But, all is not glitter, glance and harmony in his Heaven. Perfection becomes boring: `excessive beauty would make you miserable. It would become like hell: an inferno of perfections, a nightmare composed entirely of beautiful things.' `One can't live in perfection the whole time.' `Purity after a while is boring.'
Moreover, there is sexual frustration: `I have hungered for a man such as you for many long years.'

Ben Okri's book contains also some anti-rational romantic reflexes: `Understanding often leads to ignorance, especially when it comes too soon.' And, Plato is not far away: `What you think is what becomes real,' and `a city is a vast network of thoughts.'

All in all, Ben Okri's tale is too abstract. His inspirator painted not only a brilliant picture of the afterworld, but discussed also such burning actual item as the separation between secular and religious power, between Church and State.

This is a minor book by an otherwise great writer.


Simple, 13 Jul 2006
Astonishing the Gods is a fun little aside; a slim volume of myth and symbolism devoid of roots or substance. Its allegorical meanings, if it has any, are as much a rose tinted eulogy to the creative act as they are a modern evocation of an age old common philosophy - of achieving grace or enlightenment via the rejection of desire and self. Its failings are in the lyrical but vacuous prose so beloved of its fans. Much of its imagery may well have been purloined from first drafts for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - floating palaces, fiery bridges, unicorns and mists. It is an imagery where every smell has a colour and every colour a taste, which is to say it is an imagery equally as unimaginative as its "if a tree fell in the woods" dialogue. Its overall philosophy is one familiar to anyone who has seen the original 60s series of Star Trek.
Still, it is a book difficult to be grumpy with, in much the same way you wouldn't be overly critical of a child's drawing of a sunny day.


Can't help the comparisons to Garcia Marquez, 14 Dec 2001
This book is fantastic. I've been a fan of Ben Okri's for a while, but this one is awesome. Both in the fantastic and soaring imagery and the use of language. I see a Nobel Prize in this man's future. Buy it, read it, and best of all, give it.

Positively brilliant, 13 Mar 2001
I found an uncorrected proof edition in a little second hand bookshop near where I live, and finished it that very day. I have yet to investigate the deeper meanings of the book for myself, but it was a wonderful story and an excellent insight into how we define ourselves and our environment.

Another captivating novel from Okri, 08 Nov 2000
I was hooked from the first line that Okri wrote. The book follows one man's search for visibility on a mystical island, you travel with him through the city and onwards to his final destination. A well written novel that i found hard to put down, but could also pick up and read anytime. Okri weaves a wonderful tale full of emotion and courage in a search for visiblity and life.

An accessible introduction to Okri's fantastic world, 04 Jan 2002
Ben Okri, like his compatriot Amos Tutuola, is a leading proponent of magical realism, Nigerian-style. Though Okri is best known for his vast, perplexing novel The Famished Road - the winner of the Booker Prize - this collection of six stories is a more various and accessible introduction to his work. Several of the stories take place on the shifting boundary between life and death, and many paint a picture of the city of Lagos as a pulsating termite's nest of ambition, greed, corruption, guilt, violence, and supernatural eruptions. The shadow of the Nigerian civil war, in which the Ibos broke away to form the new country of Biafra, only to be brutally crushed, hangs over these stories. Police and soldiers crop up as sinister presences.

The title story, "Stars of the New Curfew," the longest and perhaps the best in the collection, tells of a young man named Arthur, his parents killed during the war, who leaves his town for the capital in search of a living. He finds a job with an insurance company, which quickly fails, and after he is thrown out of his room and spends six weeks living under a bridge, he turns to selling "rather dubious locally made medicines at various markets and on the molue buses that career all over Lagos."

Hard-working and inventive, Arthur throws himself into his work and develops a variety of effective selling techniques. Selling medicines for children's diseases, malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and ringworm, he is brought face to face with the sufferings of the poor. Worse than that, however, he realizes that he has become part of the machinery that exploits and destroys them. The accomplices he hires to mingle with the crowds and buy his wares turn out to be pickpockets. Then he discovers that the ringworm medicine he sells actually worsens the ailment. "The children were covered in welts so big and red, so obscene, that I couldn't possibly believe it was ringworm. It seemed more like ringsnake." He leaves his company to work for another, only to find himself selling new medicines with new varieties of bizarre side effects.

Arthur's tortured conscience reveals itself in nightmares of predatory capitalism, conveyed in images of war and violence. Night after night he dreams of a "lunar landscape" where an auctioneer sells the stars in the sky to the highest bidder, in exchange for "huge sums of money, a special part of the human anatomy, or the decapitated heads of newly-dead children." And then one day his boss offers him three yellow boxes containing his latest creation: POWER-DRUG, which claims to cure every known illness and affliction of the poor...

In this and his other stories, Ben Okri shows himself to be a master of the surreal, of the bizarre distortions wrought by the aftermath of war, grotesque political corruption, and hunger that can lead to hallucination. His powerful images are cryptic but don't seem arbitrary; they follow a dream logic that is forever just out of reach.

Didn't know what to expect, 29 Oct 2008
I have to admit I didn't finish this book, I felt as if I was wasting time and could be reading a Classic, which is what I expected this to be. I believe that Ben Okri is a talented writer, but just couldn't get into his spiritual world. So it was a disappointment to me. Suffice to say that this book is not for everyone.

Rewards persistence, 20 Feb 2007
Firstly, this book demands a bit of persistence. Okri begins with a series of hallucinatory passages as we follow the picaresque adventures of 'spirit child' Azaro. These adventures are pretty inconsequential, while the only reason he is a spirit child seems to be as a metaphor for Nigeria, as revealed towards the end: "Our country is an abiku country. Like the spirit-child, it keeps coming and going. One day it will decide to remain. It will become strong."

However, once the political parties descend on the ghetto, and once Azaro's dad takes it into his mind to become a boxer, the book gains direction and pace, and becomes a fascinating read. Even the spirits seem to gain more purpose. You finally begin to gain a sense of the strain that poverty places on the family, and the struggles that the country as a whole faces. Perhaps the spirits and magical realism are there to lessen the impact of such a tragic story.

As Azaro's dad fails to make much difference to the country despite his vision his ultimate insight into the reason comes as we near the book's end. "It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love."

Not satisfying, 17 May 2006
After a promising opening, I was disappointed with this novel. I realise this is somewhat due to cultural differences, but I found it difficult to care about what happened to the characters. The events are sometimes disconnected and random. That may be the author's point about the lives he is portraying, but every time I put the book down I found it more difficult to pick it up again until I finally stopped reading. I just couldn't connect with this novel. The storyline was too surreal and otherwordly for me.

My six pen'orth, 15 Nov 2003
Like many of the reviewers I agree at times it does feel circular and repetitive (the summary by the Columbian reader 'Azaro goes to Madam Koto's bar, gets scared and runs away' made me laugh) but then much of how we behave in life is the same - our blind, circular behaviour patterns keep counsellors and psychiatrists in business. From a philosophical point of view, anyone who has studied Buddhism will see the parallels. Azaro's Dad literally punches his way to the path to enlightenment. The book made me question what I see and wonder what I can't see, especially in crowded places like the tube. What must it be like to be able to see spirits and auras? If you let yourself go, this book allows you to lose yourself and your own space time continuum will become confused. Hours pass like minutes. And the peripheral element of the politics of poverty is moving. Okri could have written a diatribe about the injustice of third world debt or the iniquity of the luxurious life we live in the West compared to the struggle to survive in poor countries. There's enough everything for everyone. In a Utopian world everyone would share and be content. But he looks at it through the eyes of a child who sees that often when we get what we think we want, we are still discontent, for example his parents argue about how to spend an unexpected windfall, the compound residents fight over free food which turns out to be rotten anyway, grown ups destroy what they can't have. I do think it's one of those books though that if you're not hooked by page 10, you're not going to get into it at all and I can see that a lot of people would not. But for me, I can't wait to read the sequels.

Over-long and repetitive, 01 Feb 2003
There is a sense that Okri wanted to do too many things in this novel and subsequently didn't achieve any of them. Firstly, the whole subject of "the spirit child" seemed out of place with the rest of the story and generally the novel's harsh reality did not mix well with the nods to Nigerian myth throughout the book. Where other authors using magical realism succeed such as Garcia Marquez in One Hundred Years Of Solitude and to a lesser degree De Bernieres's South American trilogy Okri's surrealism doesn't fit, possibly because it does not propel the story anywhere.
The plot itself seemed repetitious and its portrayal of poor African life seemed quite sparse when diluted with nonsensical mysticism. Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures gives a more direct description of African life and I would suggest that as a better alternative if you are interested in social interaction and clear narrative.
TFR would have been a much less meandering and infuriating book if two hundred pages plus were edited out. As it is TFR is a confusing study of poor Nigerian life and mysticism that the latter will only make sense to those with former knowledge of the subject.

Spectacular, 28 Dec 2004
Ben Okri presents many pieces of work in this collection that urge us towards by hope, laughter, meaning and purpose in life. A very conviction driven piece of work all in all, it makes you think of the sort of life that would be possible, if we all aspired to attain the higher ideals in life or the more noble goals that we often lose sight of so easily, and so early in the course of our harrowed lives. Very inspiring.

An epic poem, which is powerful but sensitive., 02 Dec 2001
Ben Okri has managed to produce a brilliant thought-provoking poem encompassing thoughts as we move into a new century. "Never again will we stand at the threshold of a new age". We won't. Buy this poem.

Well written poetical wonder, 13 Jul 2000
Okri's 'Mental Fight' poem humanizes the Millennium. Peeling off the hype and jargon that surrounds it, he lays mankind's achievements, failures and potential bare for all to see. This well written poetical wonder, with its healthy dose of perspective, will make you sit up and think. Thoroughly uplifting and readable!

A great book for fanatics and cynics alike., 28 Nov 1999
This is a great book for both Millennium fantatics and cynics - which is perhaps more significant. If you're wondering how to survive the hype of the build up to the "Magic Moment", then read this poem. It's a real mind-opener - and the optimism is infectious.

The invisibilty of the blessed, 04 Jul 2008
This book is Ben Okri's small version of Dante's Divina Commedia (DC), with its three parts introduced by three guides. Okri's version describes only the Heaven part of the DC: ` a universal civilization of justice and love'; `palaces of wisdom, libraries of the infinite, cathedrals of joy, courts of divine laws, streets of bliss, cupolas of nobility.' `It is a civic society in which the highest possibilities of the inhabitants could be realized.'

But, all is not glitter, glance and harmony in his Heaven. Perfection becomes boring: `excessive beauty would make you miserable. It would become like hell: an inferno of perfections, a nightmare composed entirely of beautiful things.' `One can't live in perfection the whole time.' `Purity after a while is boring.'
Moreover, there is sexual frustration: `I have hungered for a man such as you for many long years.'

Ben Okri's book contains also some anti-rational romantic reflexes: `Understanding often leads to ignorance, especially when it comes too soon.' And, Plato is not far away: `What you think is what becomes real,' and `a city is a vast network of thoughts.'

All in all, Ben Okri's tale is too abstract. His inspirator painted not only a brilliant picture of the afterworld, but discussed also such burning actual item as the separation between secular and religious power, between Church and State.

This is a minor book by an otherwise great writer.


Simple, 13 Jul 2006
Astonishing the Gods is a fun little aside; a slim volume of myth and symbolism devoid of roots or substance. Its allegorical meanings, if it has any, are as much a rose tinted eulogy to the creative act as they are a modern evocation of an age old common philosophy - of achieving grace or enlightenment via the rejection of desire and self. Its failings are in the lyrical but vacuous prose so beloved of its fans. Much of its imagery may well have been purloined from first drafts for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - floating palaces, fiery bridges, unicorns and mists. It is an imagery where every smell has a colour and every colour a taste, which is to say it is an imagery equally as unimaginative as its "if a tree fell in the woods" dialogue. Its overall philosophy is one familiar to anyone who has seen the original 60s series of Star Trek.
Still, it is a book difficult to be grumpy with, in much the same way you wouldn't be overly critical of a child's drawing of a sunny day.


Can't help the comparisons to Garcia Marquez, 14 Dec 2001
This book is fantastic. I've been a fan of Ben Okri's for a while, but this one is awesome. Both in the fantastic and soaring imagery and the use of language. I see a Nobel Prize in this man's future. Buy it, read it, and best of all, give it.

Positively brilliant, 13 Mar 2001
I found an uncorrected proof edition in a little second hand bookshop near where I live, and finished it that very day. I have yet to investigate the deeper meanings of the book for myself, but it was a wonderful story and an excellent insight into how we define ourselves and our environment.

Another captivating novel from Okri, 08 Nov 2000
I was hooked from the first line that Okri wrote. The book follows one man's search for visibility on a mystical island, you travel with him through the city and onwards to his final destination. A well written novel that i found hard to put down, but could also pick up and read anytime. Okri weaves a wonderful tale full of emotion and courage in a search for visiblity and life.

An accessible introduction to Okri's fantastic world, 04 Jan 2002
Ben Okri, like his compatriot Amos Tutuola, is a leading proponent of magical realism, Nigerian-style. Though Okri is best known for his vast, perplexing novel The Famished Road - the winner of the Booker Prize - this collection of six stories is a more various and accessible introduction to his work. Several of the stories take place on the shifting boundary between life and death, and many paint a picture of the city of Lagos as a pulsating termite's nest of ambition, greed, corruption, guilt, violence, and supernatural eruptions. The shadow of the Nigerian civil war, in which the Ibos broke away to form the new country of Biafra, only to be brutally crushed, hangs over these stories. Police and soldiers crop up as sinister presences.

The title story, "Stars of the New Curfew," the longest and perhaps the best in the collection, tells of a young man named Arthur, his parents killed during the war, who leaves his town for the capital in search of a living. He finds a job with an insurance company, which quickly fails, and after he is thrown out of his room and spends six weeks living under a bridge, he turns to selling "rather dubious locally made medicines at various markets and on the molue buses that career all over Lagos."

Hard-working and inventive, Arthur throws himself into his work and develops a variety of effective selling techniques. Selling medicines for children's diseases, malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and ringworm, he is brought face to face with the sufferings of the poor. Worse than that, however, he realizes that he has become part of the machinery that exploits and destroys them. The accomplices he hires to mingle with the crowds and buy his wares turn out to be pickpockets. Then he discovers that the ringworm medicine he sells actually worsens the ailment. "The children were covered in welts so big and red, so obscene, that I couldn't possibly believe it was ringworm. It seemed more like ringsnake." He leaves his company to work for another, only to find himself selling new medicines with new varieties of bizarre side effects.

Arthur's tortured conscience reveals itself in nightmares of predatory capitalism, conveyed in images of war and violence. Night after night he dreams of a "lunar landscape" where an auctioneer sells the stars in the sky to the highest bidder, in exchange for "huge sums of money, a special part of the human anatomy, or the decapitated heads of newly-dead children." And then one day his boss offers him three yellow boxes containing his latest creation: POWER-DRUG, which claims to cure every known illness and affliction of the poor...

In this and his other stories, Ben Okri shows himself to be a master of the surreal, of the bizarre distortions wrought by the aftermath of war, grotesque political corruption, and hunger that can lead to hallucination. His powerful images are cryptic but don't seem arbitrary; they follow a dream logic that is forever just out of reach.

Gorgeous myth-making, 02 Jun 2008
A remarkable fairy tale, the legend of a lost time and a lost people, elevating an unnamed African kingdom and an unknowable tribe of artists to the heights of myth. Okri's facility here with language rivals Rushdie or Nabokov at their most luminous, and makes the novel a joyous reading experience. His insights into the minds of his characters, or the vital importance of art, or the epiphanic nature of stillness and silence, are rendered in words that slow down the eye and the mind, that force the reader to examine how the beauty of such language embeds in the mind the story being told for long after the last page is turned over.

Why use one word when you can use a hundred?, 13 Mar 2008
There's probably a good story in Okri's Starbook. It certainly has some wonderfully surreal moments, and some touching ones too. But it's Worthy... oh, so very Worthy. There's one whole chapter devoted to one of the main characters thanking everyone - and everything - and we have to read about every single thank you in brain-dribbling detail. Why? Why!?

After Starbook, I read Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone. The contrast was telling: here was someone who knew how to fit a lot into single sentences. I'm not saying authorship should be about cutting. But it should be about the magic of language, and more often than not, that magic comes when a writer has written and re-written until we're left with the core of their meaning. Okri is saying something very powerful in Starbook; it's just such a shame he felt it unnecessary to strive for the pith.

Meh., 02 Dec 2007
Before reading Starbook, I had never even heard of Ben Okri before in my life, so I was glad to enter the task without any prejudices.

I have to say that I found it all very hard going. I'm a strong believer in that reading should be fun and enjoyable, not a chore, but this book soon turned into one as I struggled to imerse myself beyond a surface level.

But I AM glad I finished it. The last quarter of the book made the first three worth reading. I don't think I really DID get much beyond a surface level with Starbook, but I've never let that stop me from enjoying something for itself.

I would recommend Starbook, but would include a disclaimer warning with it.

A spiritual work in the guise of a novel, 29 Nov 2007
Starbook starts out as a cliché fairy-tale. A prince falls in love with a maiden at first sight and addresses her, without being seen. She believes she was addressed by a deity or spirit and is devastated when she cannot meet him at the appointed hour, in 3 days time.

Partly because of this cliché beginning, I found it at first hard to persevere in reading the book. Not only is the story very much like a fairy-tale, its style seems to come straight out of Arabian nights. The language is extremely rich and descriptive, laden with deities, spirits, and magic. On a few occasions that is charming, but the richness of description is very often over the top and the narrative is at times repetitive.

But as I read on I actually found myself enjoying this book. Despite the writing style I found myself caring about the characters as it became clear that this is not a happily-ever-after tale, but actually refers to not-so-happy events in world history, albeit in a mythical way.

The characters are only a pawn in this work, however. The central theme here is the philosophy of simplicity that can lead to spiritual enlightenment. The plot and characters are mere means to bring across the author's message and are therefore of minor consequence.
For this reason I wouldn't call this a work of fiction, it is more a spiritual tale, a metaphor. Once I realized that after the first quarter of the book, I started enjoying it, I just let it the book happen and paid more attention to its spiritual message. However, this is not a book for everyone. Read it only if you are interested mainly in its spiritual worth and not because of its plot or character development, or even its style.


Poetry without drive, 25 Nov 2007
I read "In Arcadia" several years ago and still remember how moved I was. It is one of those books that you are sure you'll read again. It was with this thought in mind that I bought "Starbook". And therefore the greater disappointment.

This book is tedious and repetitious. The flowery language and fairytale form lack drive and although I finished it, I began skimming when I had 60 pages left to read. Fortunately, I read "In Arcadia" first because I wouldn't have bought another book by him if this one had been my first meeting with Ben Okri.

Didn't know what to expect, 29 Oct 2008
I have to admit I didn't finish this book, I felt as if I was wasting time and could be reading a Classic, which is what I expected this to be. I believe that Ben Okri is a talented writer, but just couldn't get into his spiritual world. So it was a disappointment to me. Suffice to say that this book is not for everyone.

Rewards persistence, 20 Feb 2007
Firstly, this book demands a bit of persistence. Okri begins with a series of hallucinatory passages as we follow the picaresque adventures of 'spirit child' Azaro. These adventures are pretty inconsequential, while the only reason he is a spirit child seems to be as a metaphor for Nigeria, as revealed towards the end: "Our country is an abiku country. Like the spirit-child, it keeps coming and going. One day it will decide to remain. It will become strong."

However, once the political parties descend on the ghetto, and once Azaro's dad takes it into his mind to become a boxer, the book gains direction and pace, and becomes a fascinating read. Even the spirits seem to gain more purpose. You finally begin to gain a sense of the strain that poverty places on the family, and the struggles that the country as a whole faces. Perhaps the spirits and magical realism are there to lessen the impact of such a tragic story.

As Azaro's dad fails to make much difference to the country despite his vision his ultimate insight into the reason comes as we near the book's end. "It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love."

Not satisfying, 17 May 2006
After a promising opening, I was disappointed with this novel. I realise this is somewhat due to cultural differences, but I found it difficult to care about what happened to the characters. The events are sometimes disconnected and random. That may be the author's point about the lives he is portraying, but every time I put the book down I found it more difficult to pick it up again until I finally stopped reading. I just couldn't connect with this novel. The storyline was too surreal and otherwordly for me.

My six pen'orth, 15 Nov 2003
Like many of the reviewers I agree at times it does feel circular and repetitive (the summary by the Columbian reader 'Azaro goes to Madam Koto's bar, gets scared and runs away' made me laugh) but then much of how we behave in life is the same - our blind, circular behaviour patterns keep counsellors and psychiatrists in business. From a philosophical point of view, anyone who has studied Buddhism will see the parallels. Azaro's Dad literally punches his way to the path to enlightenment. The book made me question what I see and wonder what I can't see, especially in crowded places like the tube. What must it be like to be able to see spirits and auras? If you let yourself go, this book allows you to lose yourself and your own space time continuum will become confused. Hours pass like minutes. And the peripheral element of the politics of poverty is moving. Okri could have written a diatribe about the injustice of third world debt or the iniquity of the luxurious life we live in the West compared to the struggle to survive in poor countries. There's enough everything for everyone. In a Utopian world everyone would share and be content. But he looks at it through the eyes of a child who sees that often when we get what we think we want, we are still discontent, for example his parents argue about how to spend an unexpected windfall, the compound residents fight over free food which turns out to be rotten anyway, grown ups destroy what they can't have. I do think it's one of those books though that if you're not hooked by page 10, you're not going to get into it at all and I can see that a lot of people would not. But for me, I can't wait to read the sequels.

Over-long and repetitive, 01 Feb 2003
There is a sense that Okri wanted to do too many things in this novel and subsequently didn't achieve any of them. Firstly, the whole subject of "the spirit child" seemed out of place with the rest of the story and generally the novel's harsh reality did not mix well with the nods to Nigerian myth throughout the book. Where other authors using magical realism succeed such as Garcia Marquez in One Hundred Years Of Solitude and to a lesser degree De Bernieres's South American trilogy Okri's surrealism doesn't fit, possibly because it does not propel the story anywhere.
The plot itself seemed repetitious and its portrayal of poor African life seemed quite sparse when diluted with nonsensical mysticism. Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures gives a more direct description of African life and I would suggest that as a better alternative if you are interested in social interaction and clear narrative.
TFR would have been a much less meandering and infuriating book if two hundred pages plus were edited out. As it is TFR is a confusing study of poor Nigerian life and mysticism that the latter will only make sense to those with former knowledge of the subject.

Spectacular, 28 Dec 2004
Ben Okri presents many pieces of work in this collection that urge us towards by hope, laughter, meaning and purpose in life. A very conviction driven piece of work all in all, it makes you think of the sort of life that would be possible, if we all aspired to attain the higher ideals in life or the more noble goals that we often lose sight of so easily, and so early in the course of our harrowed lives. Very inspiring.

An epic poem, which is powerful but sensitive., 02 Dec 2001
Ben Okri has managed to produce a brilliant thought-provoking poem encompassing thoughts as we move into a new century. "Never again will we stand at the threshold of a new age". We won't. Buy this poem.

Well written poetical wonder, 13 Jul 2000
Okri's 'Mental Fight' poem humanizes the Millennium. Peeling off the hype and jargon that surrounds it, he lays mankind's achievements, failures and potential bare for all to see. This well written poetical wonder, with its healthy dose of perspective, will make you sit up and think. Thoroughly uplifting and readable!

A great book for fanatics and cynics alike., 28 Nov 1999
This is a great book for both Millennium fantatics and cynics - which is perhaps more significant. If you're wondering how to survive the hype of the build up to the "Magic Moment", then read this poem. It's a real mind-opener - and the optimism is infectious.

The invisibilty of the blessed, 04 Jul 2008
This book is Ben Okri's small version of Dante's Divina Commedia (DC), with its three parts introduced by three guides. Okri's version describes only the Heaven part of the DC: ` a universal civilization of justice and love'; `palaces of wisdom, libraries of the infinite, cathedrals of joy, courts of divine laws, streets of bliss, cupolas of nobility.' `It is a civic society in which the highest possibilities of the inhabitants could be realized.'

But, all is not glitter, glance and harmony in his Heaven. Perfection becomes boring: `excessive beauty would make you miserable. It would become like hell: an inferno of perfections, a nightmare composed entirely of beautiful things.' `One can't live in perfection the whole time.' `Purity after a while is boring.'
Moreover, there is sexual frustration: `I have hungered for a man such as you for many long years.'

Ben Okri's book contains also some anti-rational romantic reflexes: `Understanding often leads to ignorance, especially when it comes too soon.' And, Plato is not far away: `What you think is what becomes real,' and `a city is a vast network of thoughts.'

All in all, Ben Okri's tale is too abstract. His inspirator painted not only a brilliant picture of the afterworld, but discussed also such burning actual item as the separation between secular and religious power, between Church and State.

This is a minor book by an otherwise great writer.


Simple, 13 Jul 2006
Astonishing the Gods is a fun little aside; a slim volume of myth and symbolism devoid of roots or substance. Its allegorical meanings, if it has any, are as much a rose tinted eulogy to the creative act as they are a modern evocation of an age old common philosophy - of achieving grace or enlightenment via the rejection of desire and self. Its failings are in the lyrical but vacuous prose so beloved of its fans. Much of its imagery may well have been purloined from first drafts for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - floating palaces, fiery bridges, unicorns and mists. It is an imagery where every smell has a colour and every colour a taste, which is to say it is an imagery equally as unimaginative as its "if a tree fell in the woods" dialogue. Its overall philosophy is one familiar to anyone who has seen the original 60s series of Star Trek.
Still, it is a book difficult to be grumpy with, in much the same way you wouldn't be overly critical of a child's drawing of a sunny day.


Can't help the comparisons to Garcia Marquez, 14 Dec 2001
This book is fantastic. I've been a fan of Ben Okri's for a while, but this one is awesome. Both in the fantastic and soaring imagery and the use of language. I see a Nobel Prize in this man's future. Buy it, read it, and best of all, give it.

Positively brilliant, 13 Mar 2001
I found an uncorrected proof edition in a little second hand bookshop near where I live, and finished it that very day. I have yet to investigate the deeper meanings of the book for myself, but it was a wonderful story and an excellent insight into how we define ourselves and our environment.

Another captivating novel from Okri, 08 Nov 2000
I was hooked from the first line that Okri wrote. The book follows one man's search for visibility on a mystical island, you travel with him through the city and onwards to his final destination. A well written novel that i found hard to put down, but could also pick up and read anytime. Okri weaves a wonderful tale full of emotion and courage in a search for visiblity and life.

An accessible introduction to Okri's fantastic world, 04 Jan 2002
Ben Okri, like his compatriot Amos Tutuola, is a leading proponent of magical realism, Nigerian-style. Though Okri is best known for his vast, perplexing novel The Famished Road - the winner of the Booker Prize - this collection of six stories is a more various and accessible introduction to his work. Several of the stories take place on the shifting boundary between life and death, and many paint a picture of the city of Lagos as a pulsating termite's nest of ambition, greed, corruption, guilt, violence, and supernatural eruptions. The shadow of the Nigerian civil war, in which the Ibos broke away to form the new country of Biafra, only to be brutally crushed, hangs over these stories. Police and soldiers crop up as sinister presences.

The title story, "Stars of the New Curfew," the longest and perhaps the best in the collection, tells of a young man named Arthur, his parents killed during the war, who leaves his town for the capital in search of a living. He finds a job with an insurance company, which quickly fails, and after he is thrown out of his room and spends six weeks living under a bridge, he turns to selling "rather dubious locally made medicines at various markets and on the molue buses that career all over Lagos."

Hard-working and inventive, Arthur throws himself into his work and develops a variety of effective selling techniques. Selling medicines for children's diseases, malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and ringworm, he is brought face to face with the sufferings of the poor. Worse than that, however, he realizes that he has become part of the machinery that exploits and destroys them. The accomplices he hires to mingle with the crowds and buy his wares turn out to be pickpockets. Then he discovers that the ringworm medicine he sells actually worsens the ailment. "The children were covered in welts so big and red, so obscene, that I couldn't possibly believe it was ringworm. It seemed more like ringsnake." He leaves his company to work for another, only to find himself selling new medicines with new varieties of bizarre side effects.

Arthur's tortured conscience reveals itself in nightmares of predatory capitalism, conveyed in images of war and violence. Night after night he dreams of a "lunar landscape" where an auctioneer sells the stars in the sky to the highest bidder, in exchange for "huge sums of money, a special part of the human anatomy, or the decapitated heads of newly-dead children." And then one day his boss offers him three yellow boxes containing his latest creation: POWER-DRUG, which claims to cure every known illness and affliction of the poor...

In this and his other stories, Ben Okri shows himself to be a master of the surreal, of the bizarre distortions wrought by the aftermath of war, grotesque political corruption, and hunger that can lead to hallucination. His powerful images are cryptic but don't seem arbitrary; they follow a dream logic that is forever just out of reach.

Gorgeous myth-making, 02 Jun 2008
A remarkable fairy tale, the legend of a lost time and a lost people, elevating an unnamed African kingdom and an unknowable tribe of artists to the heights of myth. Okri's facility here with language rivals Rushdie or Nabokov at their most luminous, and makes the novel a joyous reading experience. His insights into the minds of his characters, or the vital importance of art, or the epiphanic nature of stillness and silence, are rendered in words that slow down the eye and the mind, that force the reader to examine how the beauty of such language embeds in the mind the story being told for long after the last page is turned over.

Why use one word when you can use a hundred?, 13 Mar 2008
There's probably a good story in Okri's Starbook. It certainly has some wonderfully surreal moments, and some touching ones too. But it's Worthy... oh, so very Worthy. There's one whole chapter devoted to one of the main characters thanking everyone - and everything - and we have to read about every single thank you in brain-dribbling detail. Why? Why!?

After Starbook, I read Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone. The contrast was telling: here was someone who knew how to fit a lot into single sentences. I'm not saying authorship should be about cutting. But it should be about the magic of language, and more often than not, that magic comes when a writer has written and re-written until we're left with the core of their meaning. Okri is saying something very powerful in Starbook; it's just such a shame he felt it unnecessary to strive for the pith.

Meh., 02 Dec 2007
Before reading Starbook, I had never even heard of Ben Okri before in my life, so I was glad to enter the task without any prejudices.

I have to say that I found it all very hard going. I'm a strong believer in that reading should be fun and enjoyable, not a chore, but this book soon turned into one as I struggled to imerse myself beyond a surface level.

But I AM glad I finished it. The last quarter of the book made the first three worth reading. I don't think I really DID get much beyond a surface level with Starbook, but I've never let that stop me from enjoying something for itself.

I would recommend Starbook, but would include a disclaimer warning with it.

A spiritual work in the guise of a novel, 29 Nov 2007
Starbook starts out as a cliché fairy-tale. A prince falls in love with a maiden at first sight and addresses her, without being seen. She believes she was addressed by a deity or spirit and is devastated when she cannot meet him at the appointed hour, in 3 days time.

Partly because of this cliché beginning, I found it at first hard to persevere in reading the book. Not only is the story very much like a fairy-tale, its style seems to come straight out of Arabian nights. The language is extremely rich and descriptive, laden with deities, spirits, and magic. On a few occasions that is charming, but the richness of description is very often over the top and the narrative is at times repetitive.

But as I read on I actually found myself enjoying this book. Despite the writing style I found myself caring about the characters as it became clear that this is not a happily-ever-after tale, but actually refers to not-so-happy events in world history, albeit in a mythical way.

The characters are only a pawn in this work, however. The central theme here is the philosophy of simplicity that can lead to spiritual enlightenment. The plot and characters are mere means to bring across the author's message and are therefore of minor consequence.
For this reason I wouldn't call this a work of fiction, it is more a spiritual tale, a metaphor. Once I realized that after the first quarter of the book, I started enjoying it, I just let it the book happen and paid more attention to its spiritual message. However, this is not a book for everyone. Read it only if you are interested mainly in its spiritual worth and not because of its plot or character development, or even its style.


Poetry without drive, 25 Nov 2007
I read "In Arcadia" several years ago and still remember how moved I was. It is one of those books that you are sure you'll read again. It was with this thought in mind that I bought "Starbook". And therefore the greater disappointment.

This book is tedious and repetitious. The flowery language and fairytale form lack drive and although I finished it, I began skimming when I had 60 pages left to read. Fortunately, I read "In Arcadia" first because I wouldn't have bought another book by him if this one had been my first meeting with Ben Okri.

My opinion, 21 Feb 2000
I've read 'The Famished Road','Songs of Enchantment'and now I've also read 'Infinte Riches'. In this book there are a lot of changes. Sometimes when you think what's going to happen, you better think again. Ben Okri writes very poetically, which make his story come out beautifully. It's always a joy to see how Azaro and his parents undergo changes, how they become stronger after every struggle. As for Azaro who keep on discovering the agony, the joys, the wonders of life here on earth...is like opening my eyes. Because through him we look at this life we live diferently. I can't realy explain this very well. But my point is simply, that Azaro makes the reader realize how beautiful and precious this life of ours is. And 'Infinite Riches', as with the other two books, makes us realize that even more.

(p.s. moral= we should open up our arms to change, but shouldn't let go of our values.)

Didn't know what to expect, 29 Oct 2008
I have to admit I didn't finish this book, I felt as if I was wasting time and could be reading a Classic, which is what I expected this to be. I believe that Ben Okri is a talented writer, but just couldn't get into his spiritual world. So it was a disappointment to me. Suffice to say that this book is not for everyone.

Rewards persistence, 20 Feb 2007
Firstly, this book demands a bit of persistence. Okri begins with a series of hallucinatory passages as we follow the picaresque adventures of 'spirit child' Azaro. These adventures are pretty inconsequential, while the only reason he is a spirit child seems to be as a metaphor for Nigeria, as revealed towards the end: "Our country is an abiku country. Like the spirit-child, it keeps coming and going. One day it will decide to remain. It will become strong."

However, once the political parties descend on the ghetto, and once Azaro's dad takes it into his mind to become a boxer, the book gains direction and pace, and becomes a fascinating read. Even the spirits seem to gain more purpose. You finally begin to gain a sense of the strain that poverty places on the family, and the struggles that the country as a whole faces. Perhaps the spirits and magical realism are there to lessen the impact of such a tragic story.

As Azaro's dad fails to make much difference to the country despite his vision his ultimate insight into the reason comes as we near the book's end. "It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love."

Not satisfying, 17 May 2006
After a promising opening, I was disappointed with this novel. I realise this is somewhat due to cultural differences, but I found it difficult to care about what happened to the characters. The events are sometimes disconnected and random. That may be the author's point about the lives he is portraying, but every time I put the book down I found it more difficult to pick it up again until I finally stopped reading. I just couldn't connect with this novel. The storyline was too surreal and otherwordly for me.

My six pen'orth, 15 Nov 2003
Like many of the reviewers I agree at times it does feel circular and repetitive (the summary by the Columbian reader 'Azaro goes to Madam Koto's bar, gets scared and runs away' made me laugh) but then much of how we behave in life is the same - our blind, circular behaviour patterns keep counsellors and psychiatrists in business. From a philosophical point of view, anyone who has studied Buddhism will see the parallels. Azaro's Dad literally punches his way to the path to enlightenment. The book made me question what I see and wonder what I can't see, especially in crowded places like the tube. What must it be like to be able to see spirits and auras? If you let yourself go, this book allows you to lose yourself and your own space time continuum will become confused. Hours pass like minutes. And the peripheral element of the politics of poverty is moving. Okri could have written a diatribe about the injustice of third world debt or the iniquity of the luxurious life we live in the West compared to the struggle to survive in poor countries. There's enough everything for everyone. In a Utopian world everyone would share and be content. But he looks at it through the eyes of a child who sees that often when we get what we think we want, we are still discontent, for example his parents argue about how to spend an unexpected windfall, the compound residents fight over free food which turns out to be rotten anyway, grown ups destroy what they can't have. I do think it's one of those books though that if you're not hooked by page 10, you're not going to get into it at all and I can see that a lot of people would not. But for me, I can't wait to read the sequels.

Over-long and repetitive, 01 Feb 2003
There is a sense that Okri wanted to do too many things in this novel and subsequently didn't achieve any of them. Firstly, the whole subject of "the spirit child" seemed out of place with the rest of the story and generally the novel's harsh reality did not mix well with the nods to Nigerian myth throughout the book. Where other authors using magical realism succeed such as Garcia Marquez in One Hundred Years Of Solitude and to a lesser degree De Bernieres's South American trilogy Okri's surrealism doesn't fit, possibly because it does not propel the story anywhere.
The plot itself seemed repetitious and its portrayal of poor African life seemed quite sparse when diluted with nonsensical mysticism. Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures gives a more direct description of African life and I would suggest that as a better alternative if you are interested in social interaction and clear narrative.
TFR would have been a much less meandering and infuriating book if two hundred pages plus were edited out. As it is TFR is a confusing study of poor Nigerian life and mysticism that the latter will only make sense to those with former knowledge of the subject.

Spectacular, 28 Dec 2004
Ben Okri presents many pieces of work in this collection that urge us towards by hope, laughter, meaning and purpose in life. A very conviction driven piece of work all in all, it makes you think of the sort of life that would be possible, if we all aspired to attain the higher ideals in life or the more noble goals that we often lose sight of so easily, and so early in the course of our harrowed lives. Very inspiring.

An epic poem, which is powerful but sensitive., 02 Dec 2001
Ben Okri has managed to produce a brilliant thought-provoking poem encompassing thoughts as we move into a new century. "Never again will we stand at the threshold of a new age". We won't. Buy this poem.

Well written poetical wonder, 13 Jul 2000
Okri's 'Mental Fight' poem humanizes the Millennium. Peeling off the hype and jargon that surrounds it, he lays mankind's achievements, failures and potential bare for all to see. This well written poetical wonder, with its healthy dose of perspective, will make you sit up and think. Thoroughly uplifting and readable!

A great book for fanatics and cynics alike., 28 Nov 1999
This is a great book for both Millennium fantatics and cynics - which is perhaps more significant. If you're wondering how to survive the hype of the build up to the "Magic Moment", then read this poem. It's a real mind-opener - and the optimism is infectious.

The invisibilty of the blessed, 04 Jul 2008
This book is Ben Okri's small version of Dante's Divina Commedia (DC), with its three parts introduced by three guides. Okri's version describes only the Heaven part of the DC: ` a universal civilization of justice and love'; `palaces of wisdom, libraries of the infinite, cathedrals of joy, courts of divine laws, streets of bliss, cupolas of nobility.' `It is a civic society in which the highest possibilities of the inhabitants could be realized.'

But, all is not glitter, glance and harmony in his Heaven. Perfection becomes boring: `excessive beauty would make you miserable. It would become like hell: an inferno of perfections, a nightmare composed entirely of beautiful things.' `One can't live in perfection the whole time.' `Purity after a while is boring.'
Moreover, there is sexual frustration: `I have hungered for a man such as you for many long years.'

Ben Okri's book contains also some anti-rational romantic reflexes: `Understanding often leads to ignorance, especially when it comes too soon.' And, Plato is not far away: `What you think is what becomes real,' and `a city is a vast network of thoughts.'

All in all, Ben Okri's tale is too abstract. His inspirator painted not only a brilliant picture of the afterworld, but discussed also such burning actual item as the separation between secular and religious power, between Church and State.

This is a minor book by an otherwise great writer.


Simple, 13 Jul 2006
Astonishing the Gods is a fun little aside; a slim volume of myth and symbolism devoid of roots or substance. Its allegorical meanings, if it has any, are as much a rose tinted eulogy to the creative act as they are a modern evocation of an age old common philosophy - of achieving grace or enlightenment via the rejection of desire and self. Its failings are in the lyrical but vacuous prose so beloved of its fans. Much of its imagery may well have been purloined from first drafts for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - floating palaces, fiery bridges, unicorns and mists. It is an imagery where every smell has a colour and every colour a taste, which is to say it is an imagery equally as unimaginative as its "if a tree fell in the woods" dialogue. Its overall philosophy is one familiar to anyone who has seen the original 60s series of Star Trek.
Still, it is a book difficult to be grumpy with, in much the same way you wouldn't be overly critical of a child's drawing of a sunny day.


Can't help the comparisons to Garcia Marquez, 14 Dec 2001
This book is fantastic. I've been a fan of Ben Okri's for a while, but this one is awesome. Both in the fantastic and soaring imagery and the use of language. I see a Nobel Prize in this man's future. Buy it, read it, and best of all, give it.

Positively brilliant, 13 Mar 2001
I found an uncorrected proof edition in a little second hand bookshop near where I live, and finished it that very day. I have yet to investigate the deeper meanings of the book for myself, but it was a wonderful story and an excellent insight into how we define ourselves and our environment.

Another captivating novel from Okri, 08 Nov 2000
I was hooked from the first line that Okri wrote. The book follows one man's search for visibility on a mystical island, you travel with him through the city and onwards to his final destination. A well written novel that i found hard to put down, but could also pick up and read anytime. Okri weaves a wonderful tale full of emotion and courage in a search for visiblity and life.

An accessible introduction to Okri's fantastic world, 04 Jan 2002
Ben Okri, like his compatriot Amos Tutuola, is a leading proponent of magical realism, Nigerian-style. Though Okri is best known for his vast, perplexing novel The Famished Road - the winner of the Booker Prize - this collection of six stories is a more various and accessible introduction to his work. Several of the stories take place on the shifting boundary between life and death, and many paint a picture of the city of Lagos as a pulsating termite's nest of ambition, greed, corruption, guilt, violence, and supernatural eruptions. The shadow of the Nigerian civil war, in which the Ibos broke away to form the new country of Biafra, only to be brutally crushed, hangs over these stories. Police and soldiers crop up as sinister presences.

The title story, "Stars of the New Curfew," the longest and perhaps the best in the collection, tells of a young man named Arthur, his parents killed during the war, who leaves his town for the capital in search of a living. He finds a job with an insurance company, which quickly fails, and after he is thrown out of his room and spends six weeks living under a bridge, he turns to selling "rather dubious locally made medicines at various markets and on the molue buses that career all over Lagos."

Hard-working and inventive, Arthur throws himself into his work and develops a variety of effective selling techniques. Selling medicines for children's diseases, malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and ringworm, he is brought face to face with the sufferings of the poor. Worse than that, however, he realizes that he has become part of the machinery that exploits and destroys them. The accomplices he hires to mingle with the crowds and buy his wares turn out to be pickpockets. Then he discovers that the ringworm medicine he sells actually worsens the ailment. "The children were covered in welts so big and red, so obscene, that I couldn't possibly believe it was ringworm. It seemed more like ringsnake." He leaves his company to work for another, only to find himself selling new medicines with new varieties of bizarre side effects.

Arthur's tortured conscience reveals itself in nightmares of predatory capitalism, conveyed in images of war and violence. Night after night he dreams of a "lunar landscape" where an auctioneer sells the stars in the sky to the highest bidder, in exchange for "huge sums of money, a special part of the human anatomy, or the decapitated heads of newly-dead children." And then one day his boss offers him three yellow boxes containing his latest creation: POWER-DRUG, which claims to cure every known illness and affliction of the poor...

In this and his other stories, Ben Okri shows himself to be a master of the surreal, of the bizarre distortions wrought by the aftermath of war, grotesque political corruption, and hunger that can lead to hallucination. His powerful images are cryptic but don't seem arbitrary; they follow a dream logic that is forever just out of reach.

Gorgeous myth-making, 02 Jun 2008
A remarkable fairy tale, the legend of a lost time and a lost people, elevating an unnamed African kingdom and an unknowable tribe of artists to the heights of myth. Okri's facility here with language rivals Rushdie or Nabokov at their most luminous, and makes the novel a joyous reading experience. His insights into the minds of his characters, or the vital importance of art, or the epiphanic nature of stillness and silence, are rendered in words that slow down the eye and the mind, that force the reader to examine how the beauty of such language embeds in the mind the story being told for long after the last page is turned over.

Why use one word when you can use a hundred?, 13 Mar 2008
There's probably a good story in Okri's Starbook. It certainly has some wonderfully surreal moments, and some touching ones too. But it's Worthy... oh, so very Worthy. There's one whole chapter devoted to one of the main characters thanking everyone - and everything - and we have to read about every single thank you in brain-dribbling detail. Why? Why!?

After Starbook, I read Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone. The contrast was telling: here was someone who knew how to fit a lot into single sentences. I'm not saying authorship should be about cutting. But it should be about the magic of language, and more often than not, that magic comes when a writer has written and re-written until we're left with the core of their meaning. Okri is saying something very powerful in Starbook; it's just such a shame he felt it unnecessary to strive for the pith.

Meh., 02 Dec 2007
Before reading Starbook, I had never even heard of Ben Okri before in my life, so I was glad to enter the task without any prejudices.

I have to say that I found it all very hard going. I'm a strong believer in that reading should be fun and enjoyable, not a chore, but this book soon turned into one as I struggled to imerse myself beyond a surface level.

But I AM glad I finished it. The last quarter of the book made the first three worth reading. I don't think I really DID get much beyond a surface level with Starbook, but I've never let that stop me from enjoying something for itself.

I would recommend Starbook, but would include a disclaimer warning with it.

A spiritual work in the guise of a novel, 29 Nov 2007
Starbook starts out as a cliché fairy-tale. A prince falls in love with a maiden at first sight and addresses her, without being seen. She believes she was addressed by a deity or spirit and is devastated when she cannot meet him at the appointed hour, in 3 days time.

Partly because of this cliché beginning, I found it at first hard to persevere in reading the book. Not only is the story very much like a fairy-tale, its style seems to come straight out of Arabian nights. The language is extremely rich and descriptive, laden with deities, spirits, and magic. On a few occasions that is charming, but the richness of description is very often over the top and the narrative is at times repetitive.

But as I read on I actually found myself enjoying this book. Despite the writing style I found myself caring about the characters as it became clear that this is not a happily-ever-after tale, but actually refers to not-so-happy events in world history, albeit in a mythical way.

The characters are only a pawn in this work, however. The central theme here is the philosophy of simplicity that can lead to spiritual enlightenment. The plot and characters are mere means to bring across the author's message and are therefore of minor consequence.
For this reason I wouldn't call this a work of fiction, it is more a spiritual tale, a metaphor. Once I realized that after the first quarter of the book, I started enjoying it, I just let it the book happen and paid more attention to its spiritual message. However, this is not a book for everyone. Read it only if you are interested mainly in its spiritual worth and not because of its plot or character development, or even its style.


Poetry without drive, 25 Nov 2007
I read "In Arcadia" several years ago and still remember how moved I was. It is one of those books that you are sure you'll read again. It was with this thought in mind that I bought "Starbook". And therefore the greater disappointment.

This book is tedious and repetitious. The flowery language and fairytale form lack drive and although I finished it, I began skimming when I had 60 pages left to read. Fortunately, I read "In Arcadia" first because I wouldn't have bought another book by him if this one had been my first meeting with Ben Okri.

My opinion, 21 Feb 2000
I've read 'The Famished Road','Songs of Enchantment'and now I've also read 'Infinte Riches'. In this book there are a lot of changes. Sometimes when you think what's going to happen, you better think again. Ben Okri writes very poetically, which make his story come out beautifully. It's always a joy to see how Azaro and his parents undergo changes, how they become stronger after every struggle. As for Azaro who keep on discovering the agony, the joys, the wonders of life here on earth...is like opening my eyes. Because through him we look at this life we live diferently. I can't realy explain this very well. But my point is simply, that Azaro makes the reader realize how beautiful and precious this life of ours is. And 'Infinite Riches', as with the other two books, makes us realize that even more.

(p.s. moral= we should open up our arms to change, but shouldn't let go of our values.)

Gorgeous myth-making, 02 Jun 2008
A remarkable fairy tale, the legend of a lost time and a lost people, elevating an unnamed African kingdom and an unknowable tribe of artists to the heights of myth. Okri's facility here with language rivals Rushdie or Nabokov at their most luminous, and makes the novel a joyous reading experience. His insights into the minds of his characters, or the vital importance of art, or the epiphanic nature of stillness and silence, are rendered in words that slow down the eye and the mind, that force the reader to examine how the beauty of such language embeds in the mind the story being told for long after the last page is turned over.

Why use one word when you can use a hundred?, 13 Mar 2008
There's probably a good story in Okri's Starbook. It certainly has some wonderfully surreal moments, and some touching ones too. But it's Worthy... oh, so very Worthy. There's one whole chapter devoted to one of the main characters thanking everyone - and everything - and we have to read about every single thank you in brain-dribbling detail. Why? Why!?

After Starbook, I read Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone. The contrast was telling: here was someone who knew how to fit a lot into single sentences. I'm not saying authorship should be about cutting. But it should be about the magic of language, and more often than not, that magic comes when a writer has written and re-written unt