Maria Takolander was on Radio National’s Book and Arts program discussing Ben Okri’s magical realist novel The Famished Road. Listen to the podcast.

The Famished Road by Ben Okri follows the trials and tribulations of narrator Azaro, a spirit child of Nigerian folk-lore.

The spirit world constantly calls to him to leave the world of the living.

Even though he chooses to stay with his mother and father and not be reborn before adulthood, he has a tenuous connection to life.

Written in the magical realism style with a Nigerian twist, The Famished Road is hallucinatory, fevered and visionary.

This is a grand novel about the lives of people oppressed by forces bigger than themselves.

The novel won the 1991 Booker Prize.