Bloomsbury Academic The Tough Alchemy of Ben Okri: The Writer As Conceptual Artist

Winner of the Booker Prize for The Famished Road, Ben Okri is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary writers writing today. Featuring a substantial new interview with Ben Okri, a full bibliography of his creative work and covering his complete works, this is the first in-depths study of Okris themes and artistic vision. Rosemary Gray explores Okris career long engagement with myth, with Nigerian politics and culture and with environmental crisis in the age of the Anthropocene. Review "This inspired and thoughtful study of the work of the acclaimed novelist and poet Ben Okri emerges from deep reflection on the many different cultural, spiritual and philosophical traditions that weave together in his writing. Rosemary Gray's careful readings shed new and illuminating light on Okri's transformational aesthetic and intensely felt planetary concerns, as manifested in each one of his works. I have no doubt that The Tough Alchemy will remain the go-to study on Okri for many years to come." --Elleke Boehmer, Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford, UK"In these essays Rosemary Gray shows her wide reading and her eclectic mind. The essays burst with energy and critical fizz. Often the excitement of discovery can be discerned; often the surprise at intuitive delight can be felt; and often the sheer scale of the research undertaken yields lovely rewards. But mostly it is the yoking of disparate critical disciplines, brought to bear on a new reading of my work, that delivers the interest and the fascination" --Ben Okri, Man Booker prize-winning novelist and poet About the Author Rosemary Alice Gray is Emeritus Professor in the Department of English at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She is a rated researcher, specializing in Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and Pan-African texts; her current research interest is the work of Ben Okri. She has written or presented thirty-one papers on Okris oeuvre in the past decade. She is Honorary Life Vice President of the English Academy of Southern Africa and Managing Editor of the English Academy Review: Journal of English Studies. Her book publications include Broken Strings: The Politics of Poetry; Sounding Wings: Short Stories from Africa (with Stephen Finn, Longmans); Light Comes out of the Darkness: The History of Expo for Young Scientists (OUP); and A Glass Half Full or Half Empty? The challenges of political succession and elections in Africa (Ssali).