Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
Ebook79 pages3 hours
Mental Fight
By Ben Okri
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
An epic poem touching on issues of racism, intolerance and environmental destructions from Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri.
There is much to celebrate in the human journey so far – art in all its forms, advances made in the fields of technology and medicine and, for many of us, the miracle of freedom. But there is also much to regret – racism, intolerance, the destruction of our environment, the reality and the legacy of slavery.
In this long, sustained consideration of the state we find ourselves in, Ben Okri invokes the past to explain the present, and sings out a message of hope. The future is still ours to make. This epic poem, an anthem for the twenty-first century, first appeared in The Times in January 1999. Its message could hardly be more relevant to our present condition.
Discover this revised edition of an inspiring and extraordinarily tender work.
'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali Smith
There is much to celebrate in the human journey so far – art in all its forms, advances made in the fields of technology and medicine and, for many of us, the miracle of freedom. But there is also much to regret – racism, intolerance, the destruction of our environment, the reality and the legacy of slavery.
In this long, sustained consideration of the state we find ourselves in, Ben Okri invokes the past to explain the present, and sings out a message of hope. The future is still ours to make. This epic poem, an anthem for the twenty-first century, first appeared in The Times in January 1999. Its message could hardly be more relevant to our present condition.
Discover this revised edition of an inspiring and extraordinarily tender work.
'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali Smith
Author
Ben Okri
Sir Ben Okri was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw first-hand the consequences of war, and London. He has won many awards over the years, including the Booker Prize for Fiction, and is also an acclaimed essayist, playwright, and poet. In 2019 Astonishing the Gods was named as one of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'.
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Book preview
Mental Fight - Ben Okri
cover.jpg
Also by Ben Okri
FICTION
Flowers and Shadows
The Landscapes Within
Incidents at the Shrine
Stars of the New Curfew
The Famished Road
Songs of Enchantment
Astonishing the Gods
Dangerous Love
Infinite Riches
In Arcadia
Starbook
The Comic Destiny (previously Tales of Freedom)
The Age of Magic
The Magic Lamp
The Freedom Artist
Prayer for the Living
ESSAYS
Birds of Heaven
A Way of Being Free
The Mystery Feast
A Time for New Dreams
POETRY
An African Elegy
Wild
Rise Like Lions (Anthology)
A Fire in My Head
PLAYS
The Outsider
MENTAL FIGHT
Ben Okri
AN APOLLO BOOK
www.headofzeus.com
Mental Fight is based on ‘A Moment in Timelessness’, first delivered as the inaugural millennium lecture sponsored by the Scotsman at the 1997 Edinburgh Book Festival. In its present form, the first two sections were first published in The Times in January 1999.
First published in the UK in 1999 by Phoenix House.
This revised edition published in the UK in 2021 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Ben Okri, 1999, 2021
The moral right of Ben Okri to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book
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