A Prayer for the Living

Era da tantissimo che volevo leggere Ben Okri, sin dal suo Il venditore di sogni. Questo scrittore nigeriano, vincitore del Booker Prize, ha una scrittura poetica e magnetica al tempo stesso. Se dovessi definire con degli attributi questa raccolta di ventitré racconti, direi: onirica, magica e mistica......more

This collection grew on me. Either I became more attuned to Okri's style as I progressed through the book, or else the stronger stories really are in the latter half of the volume. When I began reading the book I feared that I had stumbled on a dud. The stories seemed aimless, far too lightly writte......more

I think I will give this book 4 stars, but the 5th star is for Ben Okri's mother - thank you, Ben Okri's mother! Why his mother? The explanation is in this Guardian article, which I quote here: My mother’s enigmatic way of telling stories. They appeared to have no point but they haunted me with their......more

I usually don´t pick up books with short stories but this was available at my local library and I was doing a challenge to only read Black authors during Black History Month, so I picked it up. Some of the stories I didn´t enjoy as much but there were quite a few that I really liked "Alternate Reali......more

In these stories, Okri traces the limits of real and unreal, leading the reader in what feels like circles without ever really revealing the true heart of most of the tales, while with others he invites us to peruse and question. Some stories' meanings are quite clear while others appear to be read t......more