BEN OKRI'S AWKWARD LAUREL

Ben Okri of course is one of the most outstanding, fecund writers Africa has ever produced - he was still a rather young man when he won the 1991 Booker prize (for his work, The Famished Road). 

Okri has harvested many other awards and laurels over the years, but probably his most awkward gong came in late 2014 when he won the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award, on the strength of a description in his novel, The Age Of Magic. 

  

Lao and Mistletoe are the protagonists in the love scene, and here is how Okri

"When his hand brushed her nipple it tripped a switch and she came alight. He touched her belly and his hand seemed to burn through her.

"He loved her with gentleness and strength, stroking her neck, praising her face with his hands, till she was broken up and began a low rhythmic wail...     

"The universe was in her and with each movement it unfolded to her. Somewhere in the night a stray rocket went off...".

BOOKS BY BEN OKRI

• Flowers and Shadows 1980)
• The Landscapes Within (Harlow: Longman, 1981)
• The Famished Road London: 1991)
• Songs of Enchantment (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993)
• Astonishing the Gods 1995
• (Dangerous Love (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,1996)
• Infinite Riches (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998)
• In Arcadia (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002)
• Starbook 2007)
• The Age of Magic (London: Head of Zeus, 2014)

Poetry, essays and short story collections

• Incidents at the Shrine (short stories, 1986)
• Stars of the New Curfew (short stories; , 1988)
• An African Elegy (poetry; London: Jonathan Cape, 1992)
• Birds of Heaven (essays; London: Phoenix House, 1996)
• A Way of Being Free (essays; London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson: 1997; London: Phoenix House, 1997)
• Mental Fight (poetry: London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1999; London: Phoenix House, 1999)
• Tales of Freedom (short stories; London: Rider & Co., 2009)
• A Time for New Dreams (essays; London: Rider & Co., 2011)
• Wild (poetry; London: Rider & Co., 2012)

Books by Ben Okri