Conversations with Ben Okri

Vanessa Guignery

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781496851550
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496851574
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

Conversations with Ben Okri collects twenty-six interviews that range from 1986 to 2023 and reflect the international resonance of Nigerian writer Ben Okri's work. The reader is given access to the various phases of Okri's life and career, beginning with his childhood (b. 1959) and upbringing in Nigeria and the publication of his early short stories and novels. The interviews also explore the tremendous success of The Famished Road (for which Okri became the first Black African writer to receive the Booker Prize in 1991) and the dazzling creativity of his subsequent work in a multiplicity of literary genres. The volume offers insight into the writer's creative process and his unique views on literature, history, memory, politics, freedom, spirituality, and environmental issues. The conversations often veer into fascinating philosophical discussions about the nature of art and reality, the value of myth, and the dynamics of storytelling.

Since the publication of his first novel in 1980, Okri has encouraged his readers to open their minds and eyes to new modes of perceiving reality. Convinced of the universality of art, he has been intent on redreaming the world from a variety of perspectives in poems, essays, short stories, novels, and plays written over a period of more than forty years. Throughout his career, Ben Okri has never stopped experimenting with new forms, creating the stoku (a mixture of short story and haiku), endowing his fictional and nonfictional creations with poetic undertones, and collaborating with visual artists, musicians, and dancers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chronology
• Ben Okri: Jane Wilkinson / 1986 and 1990
• An Interview with Ben Okri: Pietro Deandrea / 1990 and 1992
• An Interview with Ben Okri: Carolyn Newton / 1992
• Whisperings of the Gods: An Interview with Ben Okri: Delia Falconer / 1996
• An Interview with Ben Okri: Charles H. Rowell / 2005
• “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”: An Interview with Ben Okri: Nana Yaa Mensah / 2008
• Points of Enchantment: Sarah Fulford / 2008
• Interview with Ben Okri: Rosemary Gray / 2011
• Ben Okri: Interview: Saskia Vogel / 2011
• The Mysteries of the Word: A Conversation with Ben Okri: Anderson Tepper / 2011
• Ben Okri in Conversation: Vanessa Guignery and Catherine Pesso-Miquel / 2012
• Painter of Secrets: Anupama Raju / 2012
• Lookin Back: James Ogude in Conversation with Ben Okri: James Ogude / 2014
• An Interview with Ben Okri: Vanessa Guignery / 2015
• Ben Okri Q&A: “I Can’t Live without Good Conversation, Or Love”: New Statesman / 2018
• Ben Okri on His “Unavoidably” Political Poems: Ushnota Paul / 2019
• Ben Okri Interview: We Can Ascend Mountains: Marc-Christoph Wagner / 2019
• The Past Is a Changing Entity: Isabelle Rüf / 2020
• “Courage Is a Luxury”: Katrien Steyaert / 2020
• Ben Okri on Perception and Illusion: Deborah Treisman / 2021
• Ben Okri: “Nations Like Ours Have a Hard Time Looking Back Truthfully”: Dorian Lynskey / 2021
• In Conversation with Ben Okri: Rosemary Gray / 2021
• “Write with New Urgency”: A Conversation with Ben Okri: Anderson Tepper / 2022
• Ben Okri on the Ambiguity of Reality: Deborah Treisman / 2022
• Ben Okri or the Aesthetics of Suspicion: Vanessa Guignery / 2022
• Ben Okri on Manipulating Reality: Katherine Hu / 2023
• Index
• About the Editor