Ben Okri and Rosemary Clunie
REVOLUTION EARTH, 2021
Air Ink and acrylic on paper
59.4 x 42 cm
Ben Okri, born 1959, is a Nigerian novelist, short-story writer, and poet who used magic realism to convey the social and political chaos in the country of his birth.
Okri attended Urhobo College in Warri, Nigeria, and the University of Essex in Colchester, England. His first novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within (1981), employ surrealistic images to depict the corruption and lunacy of a politically scarred country. Two volumes of short stories, Incidents at the Shrine (1986) and Stars of the New Curfew (1988), portray the essential link in Nigerian culture between the physical world and the world of the spirits.
Okri won the Booker Prize for his novel The Famished Road (1991), the story of Azaro, an abiku (“spirit child”), and his quest for identity. Although typically not overtly political, Okri’s works nevertheless convey clear and urgent messages about the need for Africans to reforge their identities.
Okri’s submission is in collaboration with painter Rosemary Clunie, who collaborated with Okri on the book The Magic Lamp, Dreams of Our Age.
