An African Elegy
  • Published: 4 July 1997
  • ISBN: 9780099736011
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 80
  • RRP: $32.99

An African Elegy

Formats & editions
EBook
30 Apr 2015
Paperback
4 Jul 1997
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A potent collection of poems that take us into the heart of Africa by Booker Prize winner, Ben Okri.

Dreams are the currency of Okri's writing, particularly in this first book of poems, An African Elegy, but also in his books of short stories and prize-winning novel The Famished Road. Okri's dreams are made on the stuff of Africa's colossal economic and political problems, and reading the poems is to experience a constant succession of metaphors of resolution in both senses of the word. Virtually every poem contains an exhortation to climb out of the African miasma, and virtually every poem harvests the dream of itself with an upbeat restorative ending' - Giles Foden, Times Literary Supplement
  • Published: 4 July 1997
  • ISBN: 9780099736011
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 80
  • RRP: $32.99
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About the author

Ben Okri

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.

portrait photo of Ben Okri

Also by Ben Okri

The Appeal
Infinite Riches
Stars Of The New Curfew
Songs of Enchantment
Incidents At The Shrine
The Famished Road
See all

Praise for An African Elegy

Authenticity shines out of these poems in the way it does from some East European and Russian poets

Times Literary Supplement

Accessible and affecting... Born of a big spirit that one cannot ignore

Gillian Ferguson, Scotland on Sunday

A kaleidoscope of tersely condensed implications, with pregnant shifts of mood, tone and meaning brought to bear in the space of each line break... Most of Okri's writing is best understood as poetry, even when not laid out in broken lines

Michael Horovitz