The Famished Road
Azaro is an abiku, a spirit child in Yoruba cosmology who is born and dies and is born again. This time he chooses to stay among the living. The book follows his life in a Nigerian village in the years before independence, with his father working as a load-carrier, his mother selling goods at the market, and the road outside their compound full of spirits, masquerades, witches, and political thugs trying to drag Azaro back to the other world. Ben Okri won the 1991 Booker Prize for the novel, the first of a trilogy, and built a 500-page Nigerian magical-realist epic on the back of a single child's perception.
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The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A Yoruba spirit child chooses to stay among the living in a pre-independence Nigerian village haunted by road-spirits and political violence.
Yes. The Famished Road won the 1991 Booker Prize. Ben Okri was 32 at the time, one of the youngest Booker winners. He has continued the trilogy with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches.
Yes. The Famished Road blends magical realism with Yoruba spiritual tradition. The narrator is an abiku, a spirit child who chooses to stay in the living world. The style is dense and dreamlike.
The Famished Road was written by Ben Okri, published in 1991 by Penguin Random House.
The Famished Road is 504 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Famished Road takes most readers 8 to 11 hours to finish.
The Famished Road is a standalone novel by Ben Okri, not part of a series.
The Famished Road is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
