Ben Okri

• He is a Nigerian poet and novelist. He is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez.

• Ben Okri, an Urhobo man, was born on Sunday, 15 March, 1959 in Minna, Niger State, Nigeria.

• Okri spent his earliest years in London and attended primary school in Peckham. In 1978, studied Comparative Literature at Essex University, England.

• Ben Okri is a poet who uses magic realism to convey the social and political chaos in the country of his birth.

• His first novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within (1981), employ surrealistic images to depict the corruption and lunacy of a politically scarred country.
• Okri’s success as a writer began when he published his first novel, at the age of 21. He then served West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985.

• His reputation as an author was secured when his novel, The Famished Road, won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1991, making him the youngest ever winner of the prize.

• Okri was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2001 Birthday Honours for services to literature and knighted in the 2023 Birthday Honours, also for services to literature.

 

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