From 1983 to 1986, he served as poetry editor of West Africa magazine, and was also a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 19, continuing to publish throughout this period. Okri's success as a writer began when he published his debut novel Flowers and Shadows in 1980, at the age of 21. He describes this period as "very, very important" to his work: "I wrote and wrote in that period. When funding for his scholarship fell through, however, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. In 1978, Okri moved back to England and went to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government.
Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country. He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers.
He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher. His exposure to the Nigerian civil war and a culture in which his peers at the time claimed to have seen visions of spirits, later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction.Īt the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a short university program in physics because of his youth and lack of qualifications, Okri experienced a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling. After attending schools in Ibadan and Ikenne, Okri began his secondary education at Urhobo College at Warri, in 1968, when he was the youngest in his class.
#BEN OKWI QUOTES ABOUT ENDINGS FREE#
In 1966, Silver moved his family back to Nigeria, where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it. Okri thus spent his earliest years in London and attended primary school in Peckham. His father, Silver, moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old so that he could study law. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. 5.2 Poetry, essays and short story collectionsīen Okri is a member of the Urhobo people his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half- Igbo ("from a royal family").
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