Sir Ben Golden Emuobowho Okri OBE FRSL (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian-born British poet and novelist.

[2] In 1966, Silver moved his family back to Nigeria,[9] where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it.

[9] His exposure to the Nigerian civil war[12] and a culture in which his peers at the time claimed to have had visions of spirits[3] provided inspiration for Okri's fiction.

At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a short university programme in physics because of his youth and lack of qualifications, Okri experienced a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling.

[1] From 1983 to 1986, he served as poetry editor of West Africa magazine,[9] and he regularly contributed to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period.

[2][3] His best known work, The Famished Road, which won the 1991 Booker Prize,[22] along with Songs of Enchantment (1993)[23][24] and Infinite Riches (1998) make up a trilogy that follows Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria.

"[13] insisting that: Okri has noted the effect of personal choices: "Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.

His short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but it also depicts Africans in communion with spirits,[1] while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity.

"[35] Alongside his writing, Okri has maintained an interest in visual art since his youth, and in 2023, he collaborated with colourist painter Rosemary Clunie in Firedreams, at the Bomb Factory, Marylebone, an exhiition of "WordArt" that featured large-scale paintings and sculptural obstructions.

[36][37] Okri and Clunie, his long-time friend, had previously brought together their paintings and stories in the 2017 book The Magic Lamp: Dreams of Our Age.