The Famished Road (ISBN 0385425139)

Amazon.com Review:
You have never read a novel like this one. Winner of the 1991 Booker Prize for fiction, The Famished Road tells the story of Azaro, a spirit-child. Though spirit-children rarely stay long in the painful world of the living, when Azaro is born he chooses to fight death: "I wanted," he says, "to make happy the bruised face of the woman who would become my mother." Survival in his chaotic African village is a struggle, though. Azaro and his family must contend with hunger, disease, and violence, as well as the boy's spirit-companions, who are constantly trying to trick him back into their world. Okri fills his tale with unforgettable images and characters: the bereaved policeman and his wife, who try to adopt Azaro and dress him in their dead son's clothes; the photographer who documents life in the village and displays his pictures in a cabinet by the roadside; Madame Koto, "plump as a mighty fruit," who runs the local bar; the King of the Road, who gets hungrier the more he eats. At the heart of this hypnotic novel are the mysteries of love and human survival. "It is more difficult to love than to die," says Azaro's father, and indeed, it is love that brings real sharpness to suffering here. As the story moves toward its climax, Azaro must face the consequences of choosing to live, of choosing to walk the road of hunger rather than return to the benign land of spirits. The Famished Road is worth reading for its last line alone, which must be one of the most devastating endings in contemporary literature (but don't skip ahead). --R. Ellis

To Read:
I came across Okri's 'The Famished Road' in a used bookstore, in Sydney. I decided to do what I used to when I was a kid, and had no knowledge of literary genres or authors- I picked books at random until I found one that looked interesting. I know a book is good when it completely removes me from reality, pulls me in as if I'm watching inside the book, and alters my perspective when I set it down. When the father becomes a boxer in this novel, I found myself hunched over, practically yelling as if I was in the crowd. This is a wonderful book, that leaves questions suspended in the air above you long after you set it down. Do yourself a favor, and buy it.

This book is very much like the title:
And like the title, it will take you on a long and strange (for Western eyes) journey. I liked the humanity and the constant failings of the characters and how Okri is able to project the same kind of social problems and issues found in any community into his fictional village. That the place is small doesn't mean that the stakes are. How he brings politics, status-seeking, public bombast, family issues and the recurring unlearned lessons of society into his story is reminiscent of Naipaul (as has been repeatedly pointed out). But unlike Naipaul who reveals the story with dialogue and detail, Okri's intermingling of the physical world with the world of local folklore and spirituality, as if it were an entire second half of a person's constant existence, gives the novel an added dimension. It also allows the author to give you perspectives into the people and the region that would normally get relegated to subtext. Often, that spiritual realm becomes more real than the African village they all call home. I really enjoyed the novel, but it was long and it was winding. I did feel at the end that I knew the people and I knew the place, and I didn't mind at all that Okri asked me to check my beliefs of what is reality and what is spirituality at the front cover to get me to that destination. Now, if someone could recommend a place where I could get a good pepper-soup and cup of palm wine...

One of the Most Wonderful Books Ever...:
in my humble opinion. I was truly surprised to see that others had a rough time reading this book. Although my grasp of West African mythology is only as strong as my relationship with Vodou, I found this book entrancing. Despite the fact that my degree is in literature, I do not often meet books that pull me in and through the way this one did. I found myself completely wrapped in the story & followed with my full attention. It would sound trite to say that this book changed my life for the better, yet it would also be true.

Inexhaustibly Imaginative:
Like Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Okri's greatest novel births and rebirths itself endlessly from the earth's oldest dreams, painting a world in which the past is always in collision with a future that never quite arrives.

Favorite of favorites!:
I read this book 5 years ago, yet it stays with me. I think of many of the characters regularly. Of the family relationships. Of the magic of childhood and Africa and parenthood. It's mystical and my very favoirite of the magical realism genre.