In the Shadow of War (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Ben Okri was born on Sunday, March 15, 1959, in Minna, Nigeria, just sixteen months before the country gained its independence from the United Kingdom. Okri was born to Silver Oghenegueke Loloje Okri, an Urhobo man from Warri on the Niger delta, and to his Ibo wife, Grace. Okri spent his early life in Peckham, England, in the borough of Southwark and was one of four siblings, three boys and one girl. At the age of six, Okri returned to Nigeria, a country marked by military coups d'etat and ultimately a three-year civil war. Okri remained in Nigeria until 1978, when his failure to gain entry into the universities' science programs prompted him to return to London with the manuscript of his first novel in hand. In England, Okri attended the University of Essex while successfully publishing his first and second novels, Flowers and Shadows (1979) and The Landscapes Within (1981).

In 1983, Okri became the poetry editor for the weekly magazine West Africa, in which "In the Shadow of War" was first published during that same year. By the mid-eighties, Okri's talent began to be recognized, and he continued to publish. His subsequent publications included Incidents at the Shrine (1986), his first collection of short stories; Stars of the New Curfew (1988), in which a revised version of "In the Shadow of War" appeared; The Famished Road (1991), a novel; An African Elegy (1992), a poetry collection; Songs of Enchantment (1993), the second volume of The Famished Road; Birds of Heaven (1995), a brief nonfiction collection of his essays and speeches; Astonishing the Gods (1995); Dangerous Love (1996), which is a revision of his second novel, The Landscapes Within; A Way of Being Free (1997), a more extensive collection of his essays, reviews, and speeches; Infinite Riches (1998), the third volume in The Famished Road series; Mental Fight (1999), a poetry volume; and In Arcadia (2002).

In addition to winning the prestigious Booker McConnell Prize for Fiction in 1991 for The Famished Road, Okri has been distinguished by the following awards and recognition: an Arts Council of Great Britain scholarship (1984); the Commonwealth Prize for Fiction and the Paris Review Aga

Khan Prize for Fiction (1987) for Incidents at the Shrine; a two-year Fellow Common worship in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge (1991); the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore International Literary Prize (1993); the Premio Grinzane Cavour Prize (1994); and the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum (1995). Additionally, Okri was awarded a Doctor of Letters honoris causa by the University of Westminster and elected as a vice president of the English Centre of the writers' association, International PEN, in 1997. In 1998, he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2000 he served as the chairman of the judges for the Caine Prize for African Fiction.