Writers and their Work
2 total works
This first ever full-length study of Ben Okri's life and work is based on twenty years of friendship and close attention to his texts. It argues that his writing is best appreciated against the background of his early exposure to the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70) and his attempts since then to forge a medium of conciliation through literature. "We live by stories", Okri once wrote, "We also live in them". Following him from Lagos to London and from obscurity to recognition, Fraser interprets Okri's successive books as refashionings of his inner and outer narrative space. Okri's fiction, essays and poems beckon us through the shabby but vibrant streets of the strife-ridden metropolis towards a potential city of justice, sincerity and peace.
Late Victorian quest romance has recently attracted renewed attention from critics. Much of this interest has centred on its politics of gender, and its vision of Empire. This book prefers to view the genre in the light of debates within the then nascent sciences of Anthropology and Archaeology. Starting with a discussion of the nature of romance, it goes on to interpret the encounters with lost or buried pasts. By describing encounters with remote places and times, so it argues, these authors were asking their readers disconcerting questions about humankind, and about their own culture's institutions and beliefs. The book ends by considering the implications of such a view for the whole colonial enterprise.