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Book Cover for: The Freedom Artist, Ben Okri

The Freedom Artist

Ben Okri

Paperback
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"A perfect read for a post-truth era." --NPR

In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the Prisoner?

When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization that to find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question.Karnak's search leads him into a terrifying world of deception, oppression, and fear at the heart of which lies the prison. Then Karnak discovers that he is not the only one looking for the truth.

The Freedom Artist is an impassioned plea for justice and a penetrating examination of how freedom is threatened in a post-truth society. In Ben Okri's most significant novel since the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road, he delivers a powerful and haunting call to arms.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
  • Publish Date: Feb 4th, 2020
  • Pages: 336
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.20in - 5.20in - 1.40in - 0.75lb
  • EAN: 9781617757921
  • Categories: • Literary• Dystopian• Political

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About the Author

Okri, Ben: - BEN OKRI was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw firsthand the consequences of war, and London. He won the Booker Prize in 1991 for The Famished Road, and his novel Astonishing the Gods was selected as one of the BBC's "100 Novels That Shaped Our World." His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. He also writes plays and screenplays. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a vice president of English PEN, and has been awarded the OBE as well as numerous international prizes and honorary doctorates. His latest novel, The Freedom Artist, was published by Akashic Books. Prayer for the Living is his latest short story collection.

More books by Ben Okri

Book Cover for: Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Brokenhearted, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: Wild: Poems, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: African Stories, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: The Famished Road: Man Booker Prize Winner, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: The Age of Magic, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: The Mystery Feast: Thoughts on Storytelling, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: Dangerous Love, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: A Fire in My Head: Poems for the Dawn, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: Astonishing the Gods, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: Every Leaf a Hallelujah, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: An African Elegy: Poems, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: Prayer for the Living, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: The Last Gift of the Master Artists, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: Mental Fight: An Epic Poem, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: Tiger Work: Poems, Stories and Essays about Climate Change, Ben Okri
Book Cover for: The Famished Road: Introduction by Vanessa Guignery, Ben Okri

What people are saying

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

The Freedom Artist . . . can be read as a kind of revision of Plato's allegory of the cave, in which art, rather than offering distracting illusions, can tap into foundational truths and help us free ourselves from the prison of existence. The concise, declarative prose and the parable-like architecture of the stories resemble ancient forms of wisdom literature.-- "Wall Street Journal"
With a slow burn arc emblematic of Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters, and prophetic warnings of apocalypse akin to Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower, The Freedom Artist offers a contemplative look at post-truth society.-- "Sierra Magazine"
Haunting and inspiring . . . In this story of political abuse and existential angst, Okri employs a powerful and rare style reminiscent of free verse and evoking a mythical timbre. This is a vibrantly immediate and penetrating novel of ideas."-- "Publishers Weekly, Starred Review"
Like George Orwell and Margaret Atwood before him, the Booker Prize-winning Okri writes a passionate cri de coeur, a clarion call to activists everywhere to resist apathy and recognize that we are all on this beautiful globe together and that it is ours to lose.-- "Library Journal"
Okri's somber, fablelike novel is a call to rally against oppressive institutions and for broader social consciousness. In that regard, it's an inheritor of The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451, and Things Fall Apart . . . Okri's writing is sturdy and graceful, fully inhabiting the authoritative tone of mythmaking.-- "Kirkus Reviews"

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