Incidents at the Shrine
by Ben Okri
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Incidents at the Shrine is the first collection of stories by the author of 1991 Booker Prize-winning novel, The Famished Road. Whether the subject is a child's eye view of the Nigerian Civil War, Lagos and the spirit world or dispossession in a decaying British inner city, Okri's lyrical, poetic and humorous prose recreates the known and the unknown world with startling power.Tags
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Member Reviews
This book was the first book by the author published and is a series of unconnected short stories where the protagonists are all male and range in age from a 10 year old boy to middle age but share the fact that they are all ordinary with no real power or authority. They are all single and frustrated in love. What female participants present are generally seen merely as sex objects.
There is certainly a healthy dose of African mysticism within these tales which I don't pretend to comprehend and as such I find this a hard book to review. On one hand I enjoyed Okri's lyrical writing style and beautiful depictions yet on the other I feel that I failed to grasp the stories true meanings. I also found it easier to dip into the book for one show more story at a time rather than trying to merge several at a time. All in all I found this a somewhat frustrating book to read hence the low marks. show less
There is certainly a healthy dose of African mysticism within these tales which I don't pretend to comprehend and as such I find this a hard book to review. On one hand I enjoyed Okri's lyrical writing style and beautiful depictions yet on the other I feel that I failed to grasp the stories true meanings. I also found it easier to dip into the book for one show more story at a time rather than trying to merge several at a time. All in all I found this a somewhat frustrating book to read hence the low marks. show less
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Author Information
51+ Works 5,203 Members
Ben Okri, 1959 - Nigerian novelist, Ben Okri was born in Minna. After his birth, his family moved to England so his father could study law. At the age of seven, his family returned to Nigeria and his father practiced in Lagos. His childhood was influenced by the Nigerian civil war. He was constantly being withdrawn from schools so most of his show more education was at home. After failing to be placed in a university, Okri began writing articles on social and political issues. Most of them were not published, but he began writing short stories based on these articles and they began finding their way into women's journals and evening papers. In 1978, he moved back to England where he studied comparative literature at Essex University but was forced to leave without a degree because of a lack of funds. He was a poetry editor of West Africa and worked also for the BBC. At nineteen, he finished his first novel "Flowers and Shadows" and it was published in 1980. The story attacked corruption in newly independent Nigeria and tells of a successful businessman whose jealous relatives make his life difficult. Okri's second novel, "The Landscapes Within" (1981), traces the adventures of a young, poor painter in Lagos. This novel was followed by two collections of short stories, "Incidents at the Shrine" (1986), and "Starts of the New Curfew" (1988). Several of the stories tell of the Biafran War from a child's eyes. The novel "The Famished Road" (1991) tells the story of a character who must choose between the pain of mortality and the land of the spirits. Okri's next novel, "Songs of Enchantment" (1993), continued with the mythical and poetical view of the world. "An African Elegy" (1992), is a collection of poems with classical themes. Okri has won several awards, which include the Booker Prize (1991), the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Africa (1987), the Paris Review Aga Khan prize for fiction, the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore International Literary Prize, and the Premio Grinzane Cavour. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Incidents at the Shrine
- Original publication date
- 1986
- Important places*
- Nigeria
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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Statistics
- Members
- 84
- Popularity
- 379,458
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (2.75)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 2
