The African World View in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road

Abstract

One of the most pressing concerns facing the critic commenting on The Famished Road (1991) has been the question of where to locate the work in terms of existing narrative traditions. As Derek Wright puts it: what are the appropriate “exegetic latitudes” by which to navigate through a reading of this difficult novel (“Interpreting” 18)? On a survey of the criticism that has appeared on Okri, three options have presented themselves: The Famished Road has been read as heir to a tradition of Nigerian writing of which Fagunwa, Tutuola and Soyinka are the most significant exemplars; as part of a configuration of recent west African novels, including works by Laing, Cheney-Coker, Sony Labou Tansi, Bandele-Thomas and others, which represents the advent of a postcolonial postmodernism in African writing; and as sharing commonalities with the projects of a global set of writers who engage non-realist narrative strategies, especially magical realism, in their writings. The first two of these options are mutually reinforcing and point in a general way towards African culture, mythologies and literature as the most appropriate markers by which to chart one’s responses to the novel. The third option emphasises those places where Okri’s narrative opens out onto global and generic literary, cultural, ecological and geopolitical discourses.