Ben Okri, 62, was born in Minna, Nigeria, in 1959. Aged two, he was brought to England; his father had come to study law in London. The family returned to Nigeria when Okri was eight, and it was during this period (1967-1970) that the country was embroiled in civil war.
Okri returned to England aged 19 to study comparative literature, and was briefly homeless when his scholarship funding fell through. He worked in a bookshop and in 1980, when he was 21, saw the publication of his first book, Flowers and Shadows.
Okri won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1991 for The Famished Road, and he has been writing novels, poetry, essays and short stories ever since. His recent works include A Fire in My Head, a collection of poems covering topics including Grenfell Tower. Okri lives in west London with his family.
Best thing that’s happened this week?
So many lovely things have happened this week: one of them, most certainly, is getting the American proof of my new book. They FedExed it and I was not expecting it at all when it came today. Another lovely thing was spending time in the park with my daughter, Mirabella, who is five, my grown-up goddaughter, Daisy, and her mother Rosie Boycott. Daisy was talking about her childhood while looking at Mirabella, who’s going through that now. It was a beautiful exchange of childhood – very strange and moving.
Best thing about where you live?
I live in Little Venice, in west London. I love walking along the canals; I love the idea of living near water. It’s not the sea, it’s not a great river, it’s not the Atlantic Ocean, but the canal still has magic. To have water weaving through the city is a really beautiful thing. The area is full of writers, so it’s a bit of a literary area as well.
Best place in the world?
Venice itself (the real one). It pulls together the three things I like in terms of living: it’s a great city, it’s right down on the water and it doesn’t have many cars. This is a city in which you walk or you take some kind of water vehicle, but mostly you walk. I wish cities could have more walking spaces.
Best book?
I’ve recently gone right back to the beginning of Proust’s À la recherche, which I started a long time ago. I’m enjoying it so much more this time around, working my way through that great cathedral of a novel. Sometimes the prose is very dense, sometimes it’s very poetic. The first time I read it, I was reading the prose, but now I’m reading the life, and it’s a big difference. When you’ve lived, then prose is a vehicle to get to the soul, and suddenly the fruits of a life, the essence squeezed from its pain and glory, is what you get. How the prose is, whether it’s Henry James or Joseph Conrad, doesn’t really matter, because suddenly your life is roaring.
Best moment of your life?
I’m inclined to say it hasn’t happened yet. I’m also inclined to say that it was when I was a young kid and a publisher said they were going to take my first novel. I remember walking in a daze of quiet joy for days afterwards. Suddenly I was joining the exalted company of people whose dreams and ideas are between covers. It was very strange.
Best food?
When I’m in a certain way and I feel rough and need food that will restore my soul and body, I just have to go back to Nigerian food. Pepper soup, pounded yam with egusi, or just jollof rice with fried plantain and chicken. I’ve tasted some of the most beautiful food in the world, but what the soul needs at certain times is the food that you grew up with. Nothing quite does it like those flavours, those flavours of fried tomatoes and onions and the stews that Mum used to make, or rice with fried plantain and black-eyed beans, or, in the morning, fried plantain and omelette with a little bit of beans, a vegetable garnish on the side and a nice hot chocolate. It still does the trick to this day.
The worst food?
I’m really allergic to food with too much onion in it. I like fried onions in food, but some rice dishes are crawling with onions, and I could throw that kind of thing out of the window. Also, I hate overcooked vegetables, like the horrible cabbage I remember having to eat at school in London. It still makes my soul cringe.
Worst moment of your life?
There were a couple of really bad moments when I was a kid. When I was about eight, and had just come back from England, my mother came to collect me from boarding school for the 400-mile or so journey home. War had broken out and she was in grave danger, because she was of the rebel tribe. She risked her life. At a checkpoint we got separated and I was asked at gunpoint to speak my language, knowing that if I spoke the wrong language, I’d be taken into the bushes and maybe shot. I couldn’t see Mum but I could hear gunshots. Luckily I could speak a little of Dad’s language; Mum was fluent in it. And so neither of us got shot. But I have never forgotten how close I came to losing my life before I had begun to live.
Worst thing about being a writer?
Before I started to write, my life was great. I was happy, easy-going and, above all, I slept beautifully. That lasted until I began to take life too seriously in my middle to late teens. I had a day job but would stay up writing till the middle of the night. Then in the morning I’d write again for an hour or two. By the time I’d written a novel and entered my 20s, my sleep was buggered up for ever, and to this day I have great difficulties with my sleep.
Worst habit?
Because of what it costs me, and because of how it affects people’s perceptions of me, I think my worst habit is that I listen too bloody much. I listen and listen and get mistaken for one giant ear. People tend to assume that they can dominate the airwaves, and it’s caused me a lot of problems. Those who listen less probably get away with more, but miss everything.
