Songs of Enchantment - Tapa dura

Ben Okri, winner of the Booker Prize for The Famished Road, now gives us Songs of Enchantment, and it is hard to imagine a more gloriously written novel. Azaro, the spirit-child, is a reluctant traveler in the realities of this world. In this moving story of live and transformation, his adventures begin with the disruption of his family. Under the pressure of poverty and myth, his mother departs to follow the legendary Madame Koto. An obsession for a beautiful beggar girl snares his father into forbidden visions. Set in an age of enchantments, their story takes place among the upheavals of a nation struggling to be born. There are mass political hallucinations, battles of contending forces in the realm of dreams, mysterious disappearances, and the rise of the Jackal-headed Masquerade. With humour and wisdom, Okri tells of Azaro's father and how, drawing on the magic of courage, he undergoes the great penance of love. Through the experiences of this unique family we see that life lived with compassion and fire and serenity can vanquish the forces of oppression, and counter the darkness with light. At the end of this absorbing novel we feel it to be true when Azaro's father says, 'Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.'

Ben Okri has published 8 novels, including The Famished Road, as well as collections of poetry, short stories and essays. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been awarded the OBE as well as numerous international prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction and the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore. He is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN and was presented with a Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. He was born in Nigeria and lives in London.