Astonishing the Gods

Last updated
Astonishing the Gods
Astonishing the Gods.jpg
First edition (publ. Phoenix House)
Author Ben Okri
Publisher Phoenix House
Publication date
March 16, 1995
ISBN 978-1-897-58097-4

Astonishing the Gods is a novel by Nigerian writer Ben Okri. [1] [2]

On 5 November 2019 BBC News listed Astonishing the Gods on its list of the 100 most influential novels. [3]

In an interview with The Guardian Okri mentioned that he wrote the novel while on a fast. [1]

Related Research Articles

<i>Lord of the Flies</i> 1954 novel by William Golding

Lord of the Flies is the 1954 debut novel of British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves. The novel's themes include morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos.

<i>The Remains of the Day</i> Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Remains of the Day is a 1989 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author Kazuo Ishiguro. The protagonist, Stevens, is a butler with a long record of service at Darlington Hall, a fictitious stately home near Oxford, England. In 1956, he takes a road trip to visit a former colleague, and reminisces about events at Darlington Hall in the 1920s and 1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Okri</span> Nigerian writer (born 1959)

Sir Ben Golden Emuobowho Okri is a Nigerian-born British poet and novelist. Considered one of the foremost African authors in the postmodern and post-colonial traditions, Okri has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. In 1991, his novel The Famished Road won the Booker Prize. Okri was knighted at the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meera Syal</span> British writer and Actress

Meera Syal FRSL is an English comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and by portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42. She has become one of the UK's best-known Asian personalities.

<i>The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾</i> 1982 book by Sue Townsend

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ is the first book in the Adrian Mole series of comedic fiction, written by English author Sue Townsend. The book is written in a diary style, and focuses on the worries and regrets of a teenager who believes himself to be an intellectual. The story is set in 1981 and 1982, and in the background it refers to some of the historic events of the time, such as the Falklands War and the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana as well as the birth of Prince William. Mole is a fierce critic of prime minister Margaret Thatcher, listing her as one of his worst enemies.

<i>The Famished Road</i> 1991 novel by Ben Okri

The Famished Road is a novel by Nigerian author Ben Okri, the first book in a trilogy that continues with Songs of Enchantment (1993) and Infinite Riches (1998). Published in London in 1991 by Jonathan Cape, The Famished Road follows Azaro, an abiku, or spirit child, living in an unnamed African city. The novel employs a unique narrative style, incorporating the spirit world with the "real" world in what some have classified as animist realism. Others have labelled the book African traditional religion realism, while still others choose simply to call the novel fantasy literature. The book exploits the belief in the coexistence of the spiritual and material worlds that is a defining aspect of traditional African life.

An ọgbanje is a term in Odinani for what was thought to be an evil spirit that would deliberately plague a family with misfortune. Belief in ọgbanje in Igboland is not as strong as it once was, although there are still some believers.

<i>Fugitive Pieces</i> 1996 novel by Anne Michaels

Fugitive Pieces is a novel by the Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels. The story is divided into two sections. The first centers around Jakob Beer, a Polish Holocaust survivor, while the second involves a man named Ben, the son of two Holocaust survivors. It was first published in Canada in 1996 and was published in the United Kingdom the following year. The novel has won awards such as Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Trillium Book Award, Orange Prize for Fiction, Guardian Fiction Prize and the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize. It was on Canada's bestseller list for more than two years and has been translated into over 20 different languages.

Danny Brocklehurst is an English screenwriter, playwright, and former journalist. He has won both BAFTA and Royal Television Society writing awards. He was featured in the writers' section of Broadcast magazine's Hot 100 in 2007. His 2024 Netflix drama Fool Me Once is the 6th most successful Netflix show of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Daniels</span> British actor (born 1964)

Ben Daniels is an English actor. Initially a stage actor, Daniels was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor for Never the Sinner (1991), the Evening Standard Award for Best Actor for 900 Oneonta (1994), Best Actor in the M.E.N. Theatre Awards for Martin Yesterday (1998), and won the 2001 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Arthur Miller play All My Sons.

<i>The Road</i> 2006 novel by Cormac McCarthy

The Road is a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. The book details the grueling journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed industrial civilization and nearly all life. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006. The book was adapted into a film of the same name in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessie Buckley</span> Irish actress (born 1989)

Jessie Buckley is an Irish actress and singer. The accolades she has received include a Laurence Olivier Award, and nominations for an Academy Award and three BAFTA Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rowan Atkinson</span> English actor and comedian (born 1955)

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is an English actor, comedian and writer. He played the title roles in the sitcoms Blackadder (1983–1989) and Mr. Bean (1990–1995), and in the film series Johnny English (2003–2018). Atkinson first came to prominence on the BBC sketch comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982), receiving the 1981 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance.

Marie Phillips is a British writer. She is best known for her debut novel, Gods Behaving Badly, a comic fantasy concerning ancient Greek gods living in modern-day Hampstead. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 2007, later becoming a bestseller in Canada. Her second novel, The Table of Less Valued Knights is a comic take on the world of King Arthur. It was published in the UK in 2014 and nominated for the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Her third novel, a Shakespearean comedy entitled Oh, I Do Like To Be... was released in 2018.

<i>Discworld</i> Fantasy book series by Terry Pratchett

Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat planet balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle. The series began in 1983 with The Colour of Magic and continued until the final novel The Shepherd's Crown, which was published in 2015, following Pratchett's death. The books frequently parody or take inspiration from classic works, usually fantasy or science fiction, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, and often use them for satirical parallels with cultural, political and scientific issues.

<i>The Echo Chamber</i> 2011 novel by Luke Williams

The Echo Chamber is the debut novel of Scottish author Luke Williams, published in 2011. The Saltire Society awarded it the Scottish First Book of the Year prize that year. As revealed in the book's acknowledgements, two of the chapters, extracts from the diary of Damaris, a young woman and Evie's first lover, were written by a friend, Natasha Soobramanien.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stormzy</span> British rapper (born 1993)

Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr., known professionally as Stormzy, is a British rapper, singer and songwriter. In 2014, he gained attention on the UK underground music scene through his Wicked Skengman series of freestyles over classic grime beats. Stormzy's song "Shut Up", which was initially released as a freestyle on YouTube, became popular and peaked at number eight on the UK Singles Chart after he launched a campaign to reach Christmas number one.

<i>Days Without End</i> (novel) 2016 novel by Sebastian Barry

Days Without End is the seventh novel by Sebastian Barry and is set during the Indian Wars and American Civil War.

On 5 November 2019, the BBC published a list of novels selected by a panel of six writers and critics, who had been asked to choose 100 English language novels "that have had an impact on their lives". The resulting list of "100 novels that shaped our world", called the "100 'most inspiring' novels" by BBC News, was published by the BBC to kick off a year of celebrating literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embers (James Newman song)</span> 2021 song by James Newman

"Embers" is a song released by British singer James Newman, on 11 March 2021. It represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 in Rotterdam, where it came in last place with no points. Described as a dance pop single, the song is about enduring passion, which Newman feels has resonance with the approaching end point of the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

  1. 1 2 John Lind (2019-01-19). "Ben Okri: 'If you're hungry, books seem full of feasts'". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 2019-11-11. Retrieved 2019-11-10. Food and personal spiritual development is very interesting – not least in fasting. It's not much talked about, but fasting can cleanse the appetite and return one's senses to zero. Astonishing The Gods was written while fasting.
  2. "Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri". Publishers Weekly . 20 December 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
  3. "100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News . 2019-11-05. Archived from the original on 2019-11-08. Retrieved 2019-11-10. The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.