"Bloomsbury presents Waking the Warriors by Ben Okri, read by Kevin Mathurin.
When the world ends, only the underground mysteries will save us…
A great wall is rising on the horizon and a foreign army is massing on the borders of the small country of Nevereach. As invaders prepare to smash the last of the resistance, three unlikely heroes emerge from the exhausted populace.
Mel, Rosa and Apibus, driven by the loss of loved ones, inspired by old stories and guided by a mysterious star, set out to save their world by rousing the sleeping warriors. But before they can do that, they must find the witch who alone knows how to wake these mythical figures.
Travelling across a perilous landscape, encountering challenge after challenge, this could be called a cautionary tale for the three, and the reader, but it’s more than that – it’s a journey, a revelation and an inspiration.
Brilliantly conjured from the unique imagination of the poet, novelist, and activist Ben Okri, you will find inside these pages a world where the greatest enemy is not the tyrant forcing his soldiers on, but the dark forces draining people’s will to resist. P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC C 2026 Ben Okri"
"Bloomsbury presents Madame Sosostris & The Festival for the Broken-Hearted by Ben Okri, read by Phyllida Nash.
What do you do when your heart has been made a wasteland by love?
Viv, who’s in the House of Lords, had the idea for the festival on the twentieth anniversary of the day her first husband left her. Six months later, crowds descend on the grounds of a dreamlike chateau in the South of France, avidly awaiting the experience of a lifetime, Viv’s inaugural Festival for the Broken-Hearted.
Everyone is in fancy dress. No one knows who anyone is. They wander the beautiful woods with just one night to change everything. And to crown it all, a very special guest is expected: world-renowned clairvoyant and fortune-teller Madame Sosostris, known as the wisest woman in Europe, and not seen since the pages of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. She will attend for one night only.
But will she actually appear at all, or will Viv’s carefully orchestrated festival fall to pieces? Will Viv and her husband make it through the night? Will anyone else?
Part vision, part mystery, this story of a midsummer night’s madness is also an homage to Eliot's famous poem, in Ben Okri’s inimitable style, as alive with echoes and reverberations as the enchanted forest itself. Think Ingmar Bergman meets William Shakespeare, with a dash of Mozart.
Hearts will be healed, and hearts broken, but nobody will leave this festival exactly as they arrived. C 2025 Ben Okri P 2025 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Inspired by environmental activism, Tiger Work blends fiction, essay and poetry to make a powerful and very personal appeal for change.
If we continue to live as we do now, Ben Okri argues in this evocative collection, there will be no world left for us to fix. He imagines messages, sent to us from beyond the end, from those who saw it coming – from Africa, Europe, the Americas and the rest of the world – exhorting us to change now.
This is a collection comprising two poems and six prose pieces – three short stories, an essay, a letter, and an interview. It has Ben's classic blend of storytelling, fantasy and magic.
Praise for the author: 'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' ALI SMITH
'Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' MARLON JAMES on The Freedom Artist
'Okri's rhythmic, folk tale-like prose is beguiling.' SUNDAY TIMES on The Freedom Artist
'Okri's otherworldly literary approach has produced masterpieces.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY"
"By a riverbank in Africa, two lovers meet for the first time. They make a promise to meet again the next day, same time, same place, but only one of them shows up. This sounds like the beginning of a love story, but it's more than that, for this breath-taking tale takes the reader into the heart of a vibrant world, a complex and intriguing civilisation of warriors and kings, philosophers and artists, parents and lovers. A world and culture which is about to end, for glimpsed on the horizon, seen but unsuspected, beautiful ships with white sails are waiting...
“Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven” ALI SMITH
“A magical take on Africa before the arrival of the Atlantic slave ships – a world of art and artists, lovers, storytellers and philosophers... The beauty of Okri's prose is [...] the overwhelming star of the show” INDEPENDENT"
"Bloomsbury presents The Freedom Artist written and read by Ben Okri.
'Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' MARLON JAMES, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2015.
An impassioned plea for freedom and justice, set in a world uncomfortably like our own, by the Man Booker-winner Ben Okri.
In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the Prisoner?
When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization. To find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question.
Karnak's search leads him into a terrifying world of lies, oppression and fear at the heart of which lies the Prison. Then Karnak discovers that he is not the only one looking for the truth.
The Freedom Artist is an impassioned plea for justice and a penetrating examination of how freedom is threatened in a post-truth society. In Ben Okri's most significant novel since the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road, he delivers a powerful and haunting call to arms.
'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' ALI SMITH. P 2019 Head of Zeus C 2019 Ben Okri"
"An environmental fairytale made for our times, written to be read by adults and children, from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Famished Road.
Mangoshi lives with her mum and dad in a village near the forest. When her mum becomes ill, Mangoshi knows only one thing can help her - a special flower that grows deep in the forest.
The little girl needs all her courage when she sets out alone to find and bring back the flower, and all her kindness to overpower the dangers she encounters on the quest.
Ben Okri brings the power of his mystic vision to a timely story that weaves together wonder, adventure and environmentalism.
“Mysterious and magical and true. Children will love it and long remember it. A powerful symphony of a story.” MICHAEL MORPURGO"
"Topical and timely, Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri's new collection of short stories blur parallel realities and walk the line between darkness and magic.
Is what you see all there is? Look again. Playful, frightening, even shocking – the stories in this collection blur the lines between illusion and reality. This is a writer at the height of his power, making the reader think, making them laugh, and sometimes making them want to look away while holding their gaze. Stories here are set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, in a printer's shop in Spain. The characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a man in a cave, a man in a mirror, two little boys, a prison door, and the author himself. There are twenty-three stories in all. Each one will make you wonder if what you see in the world is all there is..."
"The new novel from the Booker and Commonwealth Prize winning author, is an intoxicating and absorbing tale
Eight weary film-makers, travelling from Paris to Basel, arrive at a small Swiss hotel on the shores of a luminous lake. Above them, strewn with lights that twinkle in the darkness, looms the towering Rigi mountain. Over the course of three days and two nights, the travellers will find themselves drawn in to the mystery of the mountain reflected in the lake. One by one, they will be disturbed, enlightened, and transformed, each in a different way."
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