Ben Okri (1959- )

Robert Bennett, Lecturer, Department of English, University of California Santa Barbara

African Postcolonial Literature

Works by Ben Okri

Flowers and Shadows. London: Longman, 1980.

The Landscapes Within. London: Longman, 1981.

Incidents at the Shrine. London: Heinemann, 1986.

Stars of the New Curfew. New York: Viking Penguin, 1989.

An African Elegy. London: Jonathan Cape, 1992.

The Famished Road. New York: Doubleday/Talese, 1992.

Songs of Enchantment. New York: Doubleday/Talese, 1993.

Astonishing the Gods. London: Phoenix House, 1995.

Selected Studies of Ben Okri

Bardolph, Jacqueline. "Azaro, Saleem, and Askar: Brothers in Allegory." Commonwealth Essays and Studies 15.1 (1992): 45-51.

Bruckner, Thomas. "Ben Okri: Vom Erbluhen der Verwesung im Verborgenen der Geschichte." Beitrage zur afrikanischen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft. Ed. Wilhelm J. G. Mohlig. Koln: Koppe, 1993.

Cribb, T. J. "Transformations in the Fiction of Ben Okri." From Commonwealth to Postcolonial. Ed. Anna Rutherford. Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1992. 145-51.

Gamier, Xavier. "L'invisible dans The Famished Road de Ben Okri." Commonwealth Essays and Studies 15.2 (1993): 50-57.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Between the Living and the Unborn." New York Times Book Review June 28, 1992: 3, 20.

Hawley, John C. "Ben Okri's Spirit-Child: Abiku Migration and Postmodemity." Research in African Literatures 26.1 (1995): 20-29.

Houpt, Simon, "Ben Okri: The Landscapes Within." African Literature Association Bulletin 18.3 (1992): 37-39.

Lemus, Silvia "La Escritura, el Box y Nietzsche: Una Entravista con Ben Okri, un Fabulador que Muerde." Nexos July 1995: 55-63.

Mamudu, Ayo "Portrait of a Young Artist in Ben Okri's The Landscapes Within." Commonwealth Essays and Studies 13.2 (1991): 85-9 1.

Niven, Alastair. "Achebe and Okri: Contrasts in the Response to Civil War." Short Fiction in the New Literatures in English. Ed. Jacqueline Bardolph. Nice: Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, 1989. 277-85.

Nnolim, Charles E. "Ben Okri: Writer as Artist" Approaches to the African Novel: Essays in Analysis. London: Saros, 1992. 173-89.

_____. "The Time Is out of Joint: Ben Okri as a Social Critic." Commonwealth Novel in English 6.1-2 (1993): 61-68.

Ogunsanwo, Olatubosun. "Intertextuality and Post-colonial Literature in Ben Okri's The Famished Road." Research in African Literatures 26.1 (1995): 30-39.

Porter, Abioseh Michael. "Ben Okri's The Landscapes Within: A Metaphor for Personal and National Development." World Literature Written in English 28.2 (1988): 203-10.

Richards, David. " 'A History of Interruptions': Dislocated Mimesis in the Writings of Neil Bissoondath and Ben Okri." From Commonwealth to Post-colonial. Ed. Anna Rutherford. Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1992. 74-82.

Ross, Jean W. "Contemporary Authors Interview." Contemporary Authors. Ed. Donna Olendorf. Vol. 138. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research. 1993. 337-41.

Wilkinson, Jane. "Ben Okri." Talking with African Writers. Ed. Jane Wilkinson. London: Heinemann, 1991. 76-89.

© 1998 Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne. All rights reserved. Bennett, Robert. "Ben Okri (1959- )." Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Puspa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. 364-373. This article is reprinted with the permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. and Robert Bennett.

Last Modified: 6 June, 2002