Author:Ben Okri

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE
‘So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use’
The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. He is born into a world of poverty, ignorance and injustice, but Azaro awakens with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected. But in their efforts to save their child, Azaro's loving parents are made destitute. The tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits propels this latter-day Lazarus's story. Despite belonging to a spirit world made of enchantment, where there is no suffering, Azaro chooses to stay in the land of the Living: to feel it, endure it, know it and love it. This is his story.
‘In a magnificent feat of sustained imaginative writing, Okri spins a tale that is epic and intimate at the same time. The Famished Road rekindled my sense of wonder. It made me, at age 50, look at the world through the wide eyes of a child’ Michael Palin
This is a book to generate apostles. People will be moved and, with stars in their eyes, will pass on the word
—— Time OutOkri is incapable of writing a boring sentence. As one startling image follows the next, The Famished Road begins to read like an epic poem that happens to touch down just this side of prose... When I finished the book and went outside, it was as if all the trees of South London had angels sitting in them
—— Linda Grant , Independent on SundayIn a magnificent feat of sustained imaginative writing, Okri spins a tale that is epic and intimate at the same time. The Famished Road rekindled my sense of wonder. It made me, at age 50, look at the world through the wide eyes of a child
—— Michael PalinOverwhelming - just buy it for its beauty
—— New StatesmanThe Famished Road is a masterpiece if one ever existed
—— Jay Parini , Boston Sunday GlobeA brilliant read, unlike anything you have ever read before...the message is universal
—— The TimesIt is a rich, provocative and hopeful vision of the world, stuffed full of drama and surprise-its literary lineage - the ease with which spirits move through every day life - is from ancient Greece and medieval romances
—— IndependentAzaro says that his is "a spiritchild nation, one that keeps being reborn and after each birth comes blood and betrayal". There's a glory in that. Azaro's scary, awesome, hallucinated childhood is a piece of sustained invention that turns out to be glorious in its own right, too
—— Angela Carter , Sunday TimesThe Magicians is fantastic, in all senses of the word. It's strange, fanciful, extravagant, eccentric, and truly remarkable.
—— Scott Smith , author of The RuinsThe Magicians is angst-ridden, bleak, occasionally joyous and gloriously readable. Forget Hogwarts: this is where the magic really is.
—— Jayne Nelson , SFX 5 star reviewThis is a book for grown-up fans of children's fantasy and would also appeal to those who loved Donna Tartt's The Secret History . Highly recommended
—— Library JournalThe Magicians is the most dazzling, erudite and thoughtful fantasy novel to date. You'll be bedazzled by the magic but also brought short by what it has to say about the world we live in
—— Gary Shteyngart , author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook and AbsurdistanThe Magicians is a spellbinding, fast-moving, dark fantasy book for grownups that feels like an instant classic. I read it in a niffin-blue blaze of page turning, enthralled by Grossman's verbal and imaginative wizardry, his complex characters and most of all, his superb, brilliant inquiry into the wondrous, dangerous world of magic
—— Kate Christensen , author of The Epicure's Lament and The Great ManThe Magicians is Harry Potter as it might have been written by John Crowley...This is one of the best fantasies I've read in ages
—— Elizabeth Hand , Fantasy & Science FictionThe author has taken all that is held dear in the fantasy genre, reverently (most of the time) tipping the hat to Rowling, Tolkien, Lewis, Le Guin and others, and shown it from a completely different and unique angle
—— Fantasy Book Review...a gripping fantasy thriller that will please all the older Harry Potter fans out there
—— Yours MagazineSumell’s compulsively readable novel in stories introduces a restless underachiever as irresistible as he is detestable, surely one of the most morally, violently, socially complex personalities in recent literature…. Sumell’s debut is humbly macho, provoking outrage, pity, and finally tenderness. Perhaps this is a book readers will hate to love, but only because it feels, like Alby, all too real
—— BooklistThere's a special alchemy here that you are going to want to witness...offhand and funny, and then the tender heart emerges from the shadows, so tender, and comes at us with a knife. Every story here is two: one the fun, the other the blade
—— Ron CarlsonFocusing on the single reality that human beings die, Sumell wakes up, and boy oh boy is he ever pissed off... Sumell, on Alby's behalf, fights back, and he fights dirty. Using cunning, reckless rage, and bravura comic timing, he kicks death's ass... Bystanders get hurt, the reader got hurt, but at least I was reminded that I was part of this whole shitty deal. You'd like to believe that there are consolations, and there are. Being sentient, for example. Being able to read, for instance. Having read Making Nice
—— Geoffrey WolffThe self-destructive narrator lashes out with reckless intimacy, random violence, and an often hilarious misplaced rage that shoots to wound rather than kill. What saves its victims and the reader is a naked rendering of a heart sorting through its broken pieces to survive. The result is an eloquent empathy, an uplift of hope-filled grace
—— Mark RichardMaking Nice will grab you by the throat, raise your blood pressure, and cause you to chortle in a crowd. It will also break your heart. When they're writing the history of the best characters of our time, Alby will be there, telling the others to get in line
—— Matthew Thomas , author of We Are Not OurselvesMaking Nice is a little bit special. A truly original portrayal of grief
—— Benjamin Judge , Book MunchMaking Nice has an anarchic humour and a goofy, ingenuous humanity that makes every page feel new… Some jokes…aren’t just funny, they are insightful, unexpected and hilarious. In its rampage to nowhere, Making Nice achieves the remarkable feat of making it feel better to travel hopelessly than to arrive.
—— Sandra Newman , Guardian