The Famished Road: Man Booker Prize Winner Paperback – May 1, 1993

I wasn't sure when I got this book when I got it. It seemed like something I had not read before, genre wise. Turns out it is right up my alley!Fiction, fantasy, dreamy, yet the thoughts, emotions, were very real. The characters were very real. The pain, suffering, were real. Yet underneath it all was an Indigenous spiritual sense that grew to fruition in the final chapter. A code to live by for more than the characters portrayed in the book?I invite you to read this book! Get the audio version too for immersion reading. The narration is awesome!I think you will be glad you did!

If you enjoy novels that involve the spirit realm then this is one good book. It involves a young boy of about 9-years of age who decides he wants to stick around on the earth with his mom instead of dying young as he had done in previous reincarnations. Azaro, the boy narrates the story. In the Yoruba language of Africa he is what is called an abiko, which is a spirit child with a weak link to the world. His spirit companions would like for him to keep his promise and come back to them but Azaro is feisty and resist all their attempts to bring him back. He lives in a very poor village with his mother and father where there are all sorts of characters earth-bound and otherwise that intersect their lives. The family has a very hard life filled with strife but there are also times of joy. It's 500 pages long and quite a well-told story. I read it in bed, at the office, and on the subway train as it was hard to put away once you got into it.

I have a question, after finishing this book: how can I go back to living my daily work life? This masterpiece of imagery and language made me question everything about the capitalist machine.The story of the boy Azaro and his family's struggle in a poor neighborhood somewhere in Nigeria shuttles readers between the real world and the spirit world and interweaves the two in any given scene. The boy's father (who transforms himself into a mystically powered boxer named "Black Tyger") and mother teach him through fables not unlike the boy's own travel among people and spirits. They're poor, but principled. The father resists all attempts to make him compromise his ideals, however drunk he may get or unfair he may act. The mother works doggedly and somehow always finds the time and energy to cook and clean for her husband and son. The boy defies his spirit friends, rejects their constant offers of paradise, and remains with his poor parents to love them and be loved by them and do his best to abide their wishes. It's a story of the strength of family in the face of unstoppable forces pushing against them: landlords and politicians and poor, sometimes parasitic neighbors all around them.To me, Ben Okri's depiction of the living world anticipates utter chaos and ruin. Azaro's family and perhaps his entire village cannot survive without the help of some major event. His father and mother can hardly keep up with bills well enough to feed their son and themselves. Black Tyger's boxing fame, developed through extreme training and eating habits and whatever aid he receives from the spirit world, seems to be the family's only chance to escape from the daily grind that leaves them physically and emotionally exhausted, and still broke. I can't help but imagine many an American ghetto where people feel trapped, like their only options are to become a superstar athlete or resort to thieving or worse.Madame Koto, an intriguing character for her secretiveness, strength, and the way the others in the village speculate about her powers and habits, presents readers with another option: the successful small business person, with her popular bar serving drinks, famous pepper soup, and eventually concubines. She essentially betrays her people to rise in wealth and power, supporting the party of the rich while her constituents are all poor. She comes to hate herself and show no mercy for the desperate beggars who steal from her.My favorite scene is the one in which a "great herbalist" comes to bless Madame Koto's car (she's the only person in the village rich enough to own a car). He begins by speaking of the car as being very safe, then, as he gets drunk, correctly predicts it will become a coffin. In his drunken selfishness, though, he loses all credibility by telling the crowd he can prevent the car from reaching its fate as a coffin if Madame Koto will "give" him one of her concubines. I found this hilarious, the herbalist like a corrupt preacher. He eventually sounds off on how "They" are destroying Africa and that "selfishness is eating up the world." I can only take his "they" to be capitalist aligned politicians who allow the destruction of forests and exploitation of the people. I just love how the herbalist cannot ward off his own selfish desires just as he explains the fate of the selfish world.I loved this book. I'm not doing justice to the fun of reading Okri's very unique and intelligent style. He may not provide the answers for us in today's living world, but he made me think hard about where we're headed. He made me worry and laugh at the same time.

This book should have been right up my alley: magical realism, Booker Prize winner, African folklore; it has it all. Yet somehow it just didn't do it for me. A young African boy, Azaro, is continually being kidnapped by spirits, but it doesn't seem to hurt him, and he easily escapes. His parents try to scratch out a living. His mum earns a pittance as a street vendor, and his dad carries heavy sacks as a day laborer. His dad also is an unsuccessful prize fighter. The first time any of this is described is entertaining, but by the third or fourth time, it is merely repetitive. Nothing new is added. At the end of the book all the character are unchanged.I read it in my quest to read all the Booker Prize winners, and I wish they had chosen Paddy Doyle's The Van instead.

Um dos livros mais bonitos que já li, com uma narrativa que prende o leitor. Ben Okri desenvolve uma prosa poética fantástica que segue a linha da literatura clássica nigeriana, com influências de Daniel Fagunwe, Amos Tutuola, trazendo de forma sensacional as fricções de modernidade e tradição africana, sob um olhar espiritualizado e místico.One of the most beautiful books I've read, it is a gripping narrative. Ben Okri develops a fantastic poetic prose that carries the influences of classic nigerian literature, bringing influences from Daniel Fagunwe and Amos Tutuola. The author evokes in sensational fashion the frictions between modernity and african tradition, under a spiritualized and mystic gaze.

I’m not someone who reads books just because they have won prizes and this may well be the first Booker Prize winner I’ve ever read. It’s been on my radar for thirty years and I’ve finally got around to reading it. My only regret is that I didn’t read it before because it is the kind of book that you need to read more than once, and each time you’ll find something new.At first, I found the spirit world that Azaro perceives – or half-inhabits – a bit of a distraction, especially when I realised that this is first and foremost a political novel, not some kind of fable. It’s set some time in the late Fifties when Nigeria (I assume the country that Azaro lives in is Nigeria) is on the verge of independence from Britain. There is a strong sense of poverty despite hard work – Azaro’s parents work long, lonely hours for a pittance. There is also a sense of massive inequality: the greedy landlord, the electrification that is benefiting the rich bit of the city, the tiny elite who can afford a car when most people can only dream of riding a bicycle. Near to Azaro’s dingy home is a bar run by Madame Koto. She is ambitious and on the make. She provides an important service for local men (palm wine and pepper soup) and attracts the attention of the burgeoning political parties vying with each other to seize power when the colonial authorities withdraw. With the help of political patronage Madame Koto graduates from palm wine to beer to electric light to her very own car and chauffeur. Meanwhile she alternates between benevolent and malicious where Azaro and his parents are concerned. Sometimes she feeds him; other times she seems to use him like a lucky charm. We don't see much of the colonial masters but their baleful influence pervades the shanty town where Azaro lives. They have created an environment fit for corruption and injustice.Getting back to the spirit world….Azaro often dreams about or imagines or really sees supernatural events taking place in his home, on the streets, in the nearby forest. I did find this aspect of the novel a distraction from the harsh reality of poverty and violence that fills the “real” world. However, that is a failing in me as a reader rather than a criticism of the author. It’s one reason why I need to read the book again, which I will enjoy doing.

Very good customer service

One of my favourite books. Amazing! Hauntingly beautiful.Book arrived slightly damaged with first 50 pages damaged by damp. Can't be bothered to send it back, but thought I would signal the damage.

Ben Okri from Africa is himself smiles like the God of Africa smiles too. Have to say thank you Amazon for the best quality book ever. Although the helping stiker is missing that's really a case of disappointment.