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by Ben Okri
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.
Playful, frightening, shocking--these stories from a writer at the height of his power will make you think, or make you laugh. Sometimes they'll make you want to look away, but they will always hold your gaze.
These are stories set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, and in a printer's shop in Lagos. Characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a woman in a dream, a man in a mirror, a little girl, a prison door, and the author himself.
Each one of these twenty-four stories will make you wonder if what you see in the world can really be all there is...
"Okri skillfully embeds abstract ideas in concrete, engaging storytelling. A diverse yet consistent collection, mind-bending and provocative in a host of styles and milieus." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Booker Prize-winning poet and novelist Okri creates a dreamlike atmosphere in one story, whipsaws the reader into a horrifying triptych about Boko Haram in the next, and then calms with unexpectedly gentle humor. There is something to entice or challenge every reader in this eclectic repertoire." - Library Journal (starred review)
"[A] sprawling collection...This is as an essential reminder of the timeless and vital nature of storytelling." - Publishers Weekly
"Okri is always good company and these twenty-odd tales showcase his lucid prose and freewheeling imagination. The settings range from the Andes to Nigeria, and the common thread is that what you see is only part of the story...A literary magic-carpet ride of shimmering beauty." - Daily Mail (UK)
This information about Prayer for the Living was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ben Okri was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw firsthand the consequences of war, and London. He won the Booker Prize in 1991 for The Famished Road, and his novel Astonishing the Gods was selected as one of the BBC's "100 Novels That Shaped Our World." His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. He also writes plays and screenplays. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a vice president of English PEN, and has been awarded the OBE as well as numerous international prizes and honorary doctorates. His latest novel, The Freedom Artist, was published by Akashic Books.
If you liked Prayer for the Living, try these:
by Elaine Hsieh. Chou
Published 2026
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by Louise Kennedy
Published 2024
Brilliant, dark stories of women's lives by "a very major talent" (Joseph O'Connor, Irish Times)
by Haruki Murakami
Published 2022
A mind-bending new collection of short stories from the internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami.
They say that in the end truth will triumph, but it's a lie.
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