Topical and timely, Booker Prize–winning author Ben Okri's new collection of short stories blurs parallel realities and walks the line between darkness and magic.A Library Journal Best Book of 2021"No matter how different each story is in context or story line, Prayer for the Living is not simply a collection of different tales, it is a deliberate assemblage of universal truths that explores what it means to seek and to live." —

An NPR Best Book of 2020: "Okri's tale is especially resonant in our current post-truth environment." — Booklist (starred review)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...

The sequel to the critically acclaimed Reverse Engineering. Reverse Engineering II brings together contemporary classic stories with their authors' discussions of how they were written. An essential book for everyone interested in how fiction works...

'In every moment, we are part of the infinite stories that the universe is telling us and that we are telling the universe.' Packed with ideas and inspiration, The Mystery Feast offers numerous pathways into the magical world of storytelling. Beginning with a poem, 'All we do', Booker prize-winning novelist Ben Okri presents his considered thoughts on the purpose and meaning of stories, concluding with a series of condensed 'Notes to the modern storyteller'. The collection is completed wit...

When the world ends, only the underground mysteries will save us…A great wall is rising on the horizon and a foreign army is massing on the borders of the small country of Nevereach. As invaders prepare to smash the last of the resistance, three unlikely heroes emerge from the exhausted populace.Mel, Rosa and Apibus, driven by the loss of loved ones, inspired by old stories and guided by a mysterious star, set out to save their world by rousing the...

**In this modern fable with the impish magic of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a masked ball makes two upper-class British couples see each other in a new light.A wise, enchanting novel about love, power, and our many selves—past and future, public and private—from the Booker Prize–winning author.**There are organizations for people who grieve, for alcoholics and other kinds of addicts. But if you’ve been devastated by the love of your life walking out on you, wher...

**This was a different voice; not the voice of the people. It was the voice of other.A Penguin Classic**William Golding considered The Inheritors his finest novel, a beautifully realized tale about the last days of the Neanderthal people and our fear of the “other.” The action is revealed through the eyes of the Neanderthals, whose peaceful world is threatened by the emergence of Homo sapiens. The struggle between the simple Neanderthals and the m...

A rich, joyful collection of poems on living and loving from the Booker Prize–winning author.Freedom is the most precious commodity in the world. In this powerful collection, the celebrated novelist, essayist, dramatist, and poet Ben Okri explores the beauty contained in each one of us—the freedom of our spirit, the child within. He recalls the death of his father, the sacrifices of his mother, the hidden river of Edinburgh, falling in love. He writes about Virgil ...

In this enchanting novel from the Booker Prize–winning author, a group of world-weary travelers discover the meaning of life in a mysterious Swiss mountain village.The Age of Magic has begun. Unveil your eyes.Eight weary filmmakers, traveling from Paris to Basel, arrive at a small Swiss hotel on the shores of a luminous lake. Above them, strewn with lights that twinkle in the darkness, looms the towering Rigi mountain. Over the course of three days...

This moving poetry collection from the Booker Prize–winning author finds strength and hope while reflecting on the complex issues that have burdened Africa.First published in 1992, Ben Okri’s remarkable debut collection features poems that are now considered classics and taught in schools and universities worldwide. Here he plays with the mystique of the African continent, countering simplistic narratives of suffering that have been imposed on it with vibrant, nuan...

**A Best Book of 2023 by The New YorkerIn this poignant, timely collection, the renowned Booker Prize–winning author evokes the magic of nature and the urgency of protecting our environment.**Twenty thousand years after a catastrophe wiped out the human race, visitors uncover their final messages scattered across the planet, in flooded cities and disintegrating books. These writings reveal the tragedies of people who continued to live as they always did—fearfully, ...

The Booker Prize–winning author, a child of the Nigerian Civil War, reinvents through the story of the Atlantic slave trade the beautiful soul and resilient culture of his country.A boy and a girl meet by chance on a riverbank in Africa. One is the son of a king, struggling to find his place in the world, the other the daughter of a craftsman from the secretive tribe of master artists. The prince, entranced, stays hidden in the bushes. The girl, knowing nothing of ...