"Wondrous and powerful, this anthology of climate change fiction, poetry and prose addresses vital issues and the urgent need for action with boldness and beauty."
Blending poetry and prose, fiction and essay, realism and magic in his quintessentially brilliant style, Ben Okri’s Tiger Work is a powerful, passionate polemic for change. Global in scope, timeless and timely, the anthology showcases two poems, six works of prose, and three short stories, along with an essay and a letter to the earth.
Love is threaded through many of the pieces, along with loss and a sense of the way humans have broken Earth. There’s a talking river that remembers “a time when your people used to worship me as a goddess”, and a caged songbird that comes to a little boy in a dream and explains that the forest is silent because “people have been treating the animals and birds badly”. Addressed to children, “The Songbird’s Silence” is especially poignant, as the little boy moves from feeling sadness at the silent forest to resolving “to help the forest live again”.
There’s a small note near the start requesting folks to “read slowly”, and that’s certainly what these pieces compel readers to do — Tiger Work is a nourishing book to ponder and be edified by.
| Primary Genre | Shorter Reads |
| Other Genres: |
Explore the extraordinary imagination of Booker Prize-winner and visionary author Ben Okri - one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary literature.
'This earth that we love is in grave danger because of us. Forests are becoming legends, rare as unicorns...'
If we continue to live as we do now, there will be no world left for us to fix, Ben Okri argues in this evocative collection. He imagines messages - sent to us from beyond the end, from those who saw it coming - exhorting us to change now.
Combining fiction, essays and poetry, Tiger Work displays Okri's classic blend of storytelling, fantasy and magic.
'An artist's ardent plea for change' Kirkus
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
Tiger Work features in the following genres: Shorter Reads, Fantasy, General Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Narrative theme: Environmental issues / the natural world, Narrative theme: Politics, Magical realism, Fiction, Fiction: narrative themes, Fiction: special features
Tiger Work is available in Paperback, Hardback
Tiger Work was written by Ben Okri and published by Apollo an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
Tiger Work has 224 pages
£8.99
