In the decade since it won the Booker Prize Ben Okris Famished Road hasbecome a classic. Like Salman Rushdies Midnights Children or Gabriel GarciaMarquezs One H... » 

In the decade since it won the Booker Prize Ben Okris Famished Road hasbecome a classic. Like Salman Rushdies Midnights Children or Gabriel GarciaMarquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude it combines brilliant narrativetechnique with a fresh vision to create an essential work of world literature.The narrator Azaro is an abiku a spirit child who in the Yoruba traditionof Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself andthe tale he tells is full of sadness and tragedy but inexplicably he is bornwith a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead he isresurrected. But in their efforts to save their child Azaros loving parentsare made destitute. The tension between the land of the living with itsviolence and political struggles and the temptations of the carefree kingdomof the spirits propels this latterday Lazaruss story. «