Ben Okri

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Ben Okri (born March 15, 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works. He writes about both the mundane and the metaphysical, the individual and the collective, drawing the reader into a world with vivid descriptions. Having spent his early childhood in London, he and his family returned to Nigeria in 1968. He later came back to Englandand enrolled at the University of Essex. Since publishing his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's greatest writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize. He has also won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for fiction, and was given a Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Okri is a Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN, an association of writers with 130 branches in over 100 countries. He is also a member of the United Kingdom's Royal National Theatre. After taking a 5 year break, Ben published his eleventh book, Starbook. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Westminster (1997) and the University of Essex (2002), and was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2001.

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