In Ben Okri’s new novel, a country called Nevereach faces an invading army. Three people set out to wake the warriors of an ancient legend. First, they must find the one person who knows how.
It is the premise of Waking the Warriors, the book Okri will discuss at the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival on Sunday 11 October. But beneath the fable sits a question with a much wider reach: what helps people act when fear has worn down their belief that they can change anything?
Okri has long used stories in which the visible world is only part of what his characters experience. His 1991 novel The Famished Road, narrated through the eyes of a spirit child, won the Booker Prize and made him its youngest winner at that point. He was also the first Black writer to receive the award. Looking back on the novel, he has described searching for a form of language capable of holding the mysteries and rituals of his African childhood.
Thirty-five years later, myth remains central to his work. In Waking the Warriors, Mel, Rosa and Apibus draw on old stories as they travel through a threatened world. The novel’s danger comes from more than the army approaching Nevereach: Okri’s description also points to the forces that drain people’s will to resist.
That gives his Harrogate appearance an interesting question to pursue. Ancient tales can carry knowledge between generations, but what can they offer people facing the pressures of a very different present? At the festival, Okri is expected to discuss the legends behind the novel, the role of imagination in his writing and why storytelling still matters in difficult times.
The event falls during Black History Month. It is a chance to hear a writer whose work has challenged narrow ideas of what a novel can contain talk about the making of a new one — and about why an old story might still help us see the world more clearly.
Waking the Warriors with Ben Okri is at The Crown Hotel, Harrogate, on Sunday 11 October at 1.30pm.
Tickets are £20 through Harrogate International Festivals or its box office on 01423 562 303.
