A young prince meets the love of his life just as the first Atlantic slave traders reach the shores of Nigeria in this powerful tale of true love and true horror from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Famished Road.
The moment before the world changed and innocence was lost - Ben Okri's breathtaking novel about life in the time immediately before the arrival of the Atlantic slavers restores the full vibrancy of a lost history to his Nigerian homeland.
Two lovers meet for the first time. One is the son of a king, struggling to find his place in the world, the other is the gifted daughter of a master craftsman from a famous but secretive tribe. The young people meet accidentally, just for a moment, by the river. They vow to meet again. When the girl fails to show up at the arranged time, the prince begins a search for her that takes him into the heart of the secretive tribe, and gives his own enemies the chance they have been hoping for to destroy him.
Mysterious ships are glimpsed, like ghosts, on the horizon, hidden in bays, glanced between trees in the forest. A white wind begins to blow through the world. And with it, things begin to disappear, songs, stories, sculptures, and finally people.
This book was previously published as Starbook in 2008. It has been substantially rewritten. The first reception of the book did not reference the slavery aspects or saw them as allegorical. This re-publishing is a chance to put that right in the light of contemporary acknowledgement of historical and current injustices.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781838935870
Number of pages: 512
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
A magical take on Africa before the arrival of the Atlantic slave ships – a world of art and artists, lovers, storytellers and philosophers... The beauty of Okri's prose is [...] the overwhelming star of the show - Independent
Told with a bracing sincerity... and gnomic wisdom expressed in supple but sturdy prose - Daily Telegraph
'[Okri's] writing takes on the great riddles of existence — freedom and consciousness, truth and illusion, suffering and transcendence — spinning them into shimmering, allegorical texts.' - New York Times
PRAISE FOR BEN OKRI: 'Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' Marlon James, on The Freedom Artist. 'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' - Ali Smith
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