Book Review Series#1: The Famished Road by Ben Okri

“We human beings are small things. Life is a
great thing. As I am talking now, they are holding elections in heaven and under the sea. We have entered a new age. We must be prepared. There are strangebombs in theworld. Great powers in space are fighting to control our destiny. Machines and poisons and selfish dreams will eat us up. I entered a space ship and found myself on another planet. People who look like human beings are
not human beings. Strange people are amongst us. We must be careful. Our lives are changing.
Our gods are silent. Our ancestors are silent. A great something is going to come from the sky
and change the face of the earth. We must take an interest in politics. We must becomespies on
behalf of justice. Human beings aredreamingof wipingout their fellow human beings from this
earth. Rats and frogs understand their destiny. Why not man, eh? My wife, my son, where are we
going? There is no rest for the soul. God is hungry for us to grow. When you look around and
you see empty spaces, beware. In those spaces are cities, invisible civilisations, future histories,
everything is HERE. We must look at the world with new eyes. We must look at ourselves
differently. We are freer than we think. We haven’t begun to live yet. The man whose light has
come on in his head, in his dormant sun, can never be kept down or defeated. We can redream this world and make the dream real. Human beings are gods hidden from themselves. My son,
our hunger can change the world, make it better, sweeter. People who use only their eyes do not SEE. People who use only their ears do not HEAR. It is more difficult to love than to die. It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain.
One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us. The trees of the forest, the animals of the bushes, tortoises, birds, and flowers know our future. The world that we see and the world that is there are two different things".

This mythical work of fiction centres on an abiku child called “Azaro". Azaro is a spirit child who decides, at his birth, to stay on Earth, as opposed to going back to the spirit world, where he belongs. His parents live in the slums of Africa, in a rat-infested room
Azaro goes through a tough time on earth. He sees visions, spirits, midgets, demons and all sorts of unusual beings. Okri uses Azaro's life to depict, to the readers, the daily life of every poor man in African slums.
My View: The first person narrative technique is employed in the story and this adds some elements of reality to the story. At a point, in the course of reading, I got lost in the world of visions and spiritual dreams of a young child, the main character, Azaro. In the book, Okri, through Azaro, relates several issues of post-independence in Nigeria. Political thuggery, corruption, deceit, greed, poverty and gullibility are all highlighted by the writer.

Although, I wasn't born during the post-independence era, the book gave me an insight as to the daily routine of Nigerians during that era. A strange book, it is, but full of artistic impact. Okri employs the use of words which trigger feelings and pictures in the minds of the readers. He exposes the dirty tricks of political officials and also sends out warnings and words of advice to Africans, through his characters. All in all, it's an excellent book.