Ben Okri
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Who is this?
Sir Ben Golden Emuobowho Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian-born British poet and novelist. Considered one of the foremost African authors in the postmodern and post-colonial traditions, Okri has been compared to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. In 1991, his novel The Famished Road won the Booker Prize. Okri was knighted at the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to literature.
Career
- 1959Born
- 1991Won Booker Prize
- 1997Won Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
- Member of Royal Society of Literature
- Member of PEN International
- Member of Royal National Theatre
- Won Officer of the Order of the British Empire
- Won Knight Bachelor
- Notable work: The Famished Road
- Notable work: Starbook
- Notable work: Songs of Enchantment
- Notable work: Every Leaf a Hallelujah
Trivia
- •Place of birth: Minna
- •Citizenship: Nigeria, United Kingdom
- •Known as: writer, journalist, novelist, author
- •Genre: Postmodernism
What happened recently
Sara Cox, Ben Okri, Chris Terrill and the Inheritance Tracks of Nisha Katona
Quote of the Day on Father’s Day by Ben Okri: “One of the greatest gifts my father gave me…”
"A Literature Should Be Like a Feast": Sir Ben Okri in Conversation with Bola Mosuro
Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Brokenhearted by Ben Okri: Review by Maya C. James
‘A palette unlike anything in the west’: Ben Okri, Yinka Shonibare and more on how Nigerian art revived Britain’s cultural landscape
Ben Okri and Jason Silva are redefining art and innovation at the UNFINISHED Festival
Ben Okri on swapping novels for painting: ‘Could these two great rivers of creativity merge?’
A moment that changed me: Ben Okri – realising my dream to become a novelist at the age of 19
Artists must confront the climate crisis – we must write as if these are the last days
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