Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Prayer for the Living
    Unavailable
    Prayer for the Living
    Unavailable
    Prayer for the Living
    Ebook187 pages3 hours

    Prayer for the Living

    By Ben Okri

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    Topical and timely, Booker Prize–winning author Ben Okri's new collection of short stories blurs parallel realities and walks the line between darkness and magic.

    A Library Journal Best Book of 2021

    "No matter how different each story is in context or story line, Prayer for the Living is not simply a collection of different tales, it is a deliberate assemblage of universal truths that explores what it means to seek and to live."
    --Los Angeles Review of Books

    "[Okri's] new story collection, Prayer for the Living, spans the globe."
    --Los Angeles Times

    "Prayer for the Living creates beauty in the empty spaces, and the confusing lines between reality and myth . . . Regardless of where Ben Okri takes his readers, he does so with a steady, confident hand, even in ambiguity."
    --Locus Magazine

    Playful, frightening, shocking--these stories from a writer at the height of his power will make you think, or make you laugh. Sometimes they’ll make you want to look away, but they will always hold your gaze.

    These are stories set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, and in a printer’s shop in Lagos. Characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a woman in a dream, a man in a mirror, a little girl, a prison door, and the author himself.

    Each one of these twenty-four stories will make you wonder if what you see in the world can really be all there is . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAkashic Books
    Release dateFeb 2, 2021
    ISBN9781617758744
    Author

    Ben Okri

    Ben Okri was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw first-hand the consequences of war, and London. He has won many awards over the years, including the Booker Prize for Fiction, and is also an acclaimed essayist, playwright, and poet. In 2019 Astonishing the Gods was named as one of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'.

    Read more from Ben Okri

    Related to Prayer for the Living

    Related ebooks

    Short Stories For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Spitting in the Face of Empire: The Millions Interviews Nisi Shawl

      Oct 2, 2017

      I think of speculative fiction as basically taking care of all of our needs when it comes to imagining ourselves, imagining ourselves doing better, imagining ourselves in the future, imagining ourselves in the past. The post Spitting in the Face of

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Nadia Owusu

      Dec 15, 2020

      If anyone were to ask me for recommendations of books for America’s new leaders to read before they are sworn in, this collection would be on my list. The post A Year in Reading: Nadia Owusu appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      When We Were Birds

      Jan 26, 2022

      RELEASED 10 FEBRUARY 288 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Ayanna Lloyd Banwo Publisher Hamish Hamilton By the time you read this, review, the days will be getting longer. At the time of writing it, though, we’re firmly in the darkest time of t

      1 min read

    • Article

      Akwaeke Emezi

      May 28, 2021

      Akwaeke Emezi
      6 min read

    • Article

      Compelling Characters

      Jul 1, 2020

      Beach Read by Emily Henry (Berkley) January Andrews and Augustus Everett couldn’t be more different. January is a bestselling romance author, and Augustus writes highbrow literary fiction. But when they both find themselves with writers’ block and li

      1 min read

    • Article

      Reclaiming the Dream

      Mar 23, 2021

      Reclaiming the Dream
      9 min read

    • Article

      How High We Go In The Dark

      Dec 29, 2021

      ▸ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 304 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Sequoia Nagamatsu ▸ Publisher Bloomsbury There are surprisingly few SF stories about death. Sure, many books and films kill off characters. But only a handful – like Tarkovsky’s Solaris, or Te

      1 min read

    • Article

      Africa RISING

      May 11, 2020

      Africa RISING
      3 min read

    • Article

      Best Translated Book Awards Names 2020 Longlists

      Apr 1, 2020

      The 35 books on this year's fiction and poetry longlists represent 20 different countries and feature authors writing in 18 languages. The post Best Translated Book Awards Names 2020 Longlists appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Tracie Morris

      Mar 9, 2021

      1. There’s a sign near the waterfrontI think it’s advertising cheer:says 400 YEARS, VIRGINIA SPIRITS. A swig. A year ago last night, my dead crowd mean even ceremonyof Jamestown, at the schooner that brought those first here.They think: long tripdid

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Shroom Of One’s Own

      Sep 15, 2020

      A Shroom Of One’s Own
      5 min read

    • Article

      Cooking with Octavia Butler

      Nov 30, 2018

      Cooking with Octavia Butler
      11 min read

    • Article

      International Booker Prize Shortlist Led By Books ‘Pushing The Boundaries’ Of Fiction

      Apr 22, 2021

      From Maria Stepanova’s family memoir to a historical essay by Éric Vuillard, this year’s shortlist for the International Booker prize for translated fiction is highlighting works that “are really pushing the boundaries” of fiction and nonfiction. The

      3 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      The painting is of a door, its wood so warpedwith moisture it cannot close. It stays ajar leaving a sliver of light—enough to suggestsomething sweet and almost unreachable behind the door—and you sit in yourroom working on the bills or those comforti

      4 min read

    Reviews for Prayer for the Living

    4/5

    23 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This is an excellent collection of short (some very short) stories. It's an interesting mix of realism, magical realism and surrealism. Each story creates its own mood and they all have a sense of mystery that calls for close reading. Because of this, I haven't yet read them all though I received then book in January. I'm savoring it, bit by bit!
    • 4/5
      This is a collection of short-stories by an Nigerian literature treasure, Ben Okri. His stories have a surreal, dreamlike quality. Sometimes that works well, in other stories it was just a bit too odd. My own dreams are weird enough, I don't need to get lost in someone else's. I think my favorite story in the collection was "Don Ki-Otah and the Ambiguity of Reading," which references both Cervantes and Achebe, and pays tribute to the power of the written word.
    • 4/5
      It's been a long time since I've read anything by Okri. I read the Famished Road years ago and it was pretty good. This is pretty good too and I think one of its strengths is the multiplicity of angles that this collection of stories, vignettes and poetry comes at the reader from. Maybe there could have been some things edited out but I have to say most of it I liked. Okri is a fine writer and while reading this I wondered what else I might have missed out on between the Famished Road and now.