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The Famished Road
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Format: Hardback
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Description
The Famished Road offers the profound insight: 'So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use.'
The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child who, in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria, exists between life and death. He is born into a world of poverty, ignorance, and injustice, yet Azaro awakens with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected. However, in their efforts to save their child, Azaro's loving parents are made destitute.
The tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits propels this latter-day Lazarus's story. Despite belonging to a spirit world filled with enchantment, where there is no suffering, Azaro chooses to stay in the land of the living—to feel it, endure it, know it, and love it.
This is his story.
Series: Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781841594019
Publisher: Everyman
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 07 October 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Everyman's Library
Contributors:
- Introduction by Vanessa Guignery
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 33.0mm
Width: 135.0mm
Height: 212.0mm
Weight: 642g
Pages: 624
About the Author
Ben Okri has published 8 novels, including The Famished Road, as well as collections of poetry, short stories and essays. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been awarded the OBE as well as numerous international prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction and the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore. He is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN and was presented with a Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. He was born in Nigeria and lives in London.
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