It Took Nearly 30 Years. Is America Ready for Ben Okri Now?

The Nigerian writer Okezie Nwoka finds Okri’s work more relevant now than ever. “His themes strike to the core of the human experience and get us to examine the metaphysical underpinnings of our day-to-day realities,” said Nwoka, who was inspired by Okri to “be audacious” in his own writing. “Ben has shown me that African writing does not have to follow a single style — that it can be as fluid and diverse as African people.”

The poems collected in “A Fire in My Head” exhibit a decidedly sharpened political edge, too. There are reflections on Boko Haram, the plight of the Rohingya and the death of George Floyd. One of the most striking poems is “Grenfell Tower, June 2017,” which Okri wrote in the immediate aftermath of the London apartment fire and which bears the refrain, “If you want to see how the poor die, come see Grenfell Tower / See the tower, and a world-changing dream flower.” Okri’s reading of it was viewed more than six million times on Facebook.

One of Okri’s other significant preoccupations is his daughter, Mirabella, 6, whom he celebrates in several poems. “Of the many fires in my head, one of them is the fire of fatherhood,” he said. “Late fatherhood is one of the strangest and most beautiful things I know.” His daughter, who he says is already an “environmental warrior herself,” has had a profound effect on his writing, he said, compelling him to “distill even more.”

She also played an important part in the creation of “Every Leaf a Hallelujah,” an ecological fable published last year about a girl named Mangoshi from an unspecified African country who fights to stave off the destruction of her village’s trees. (The artist Diana Ejaita illustrated the text.)

“She used to turn up at my desk every day and ask, ‘How’s Mangoshi going? Has she saved the forest yet?’” Okri said of his daughter, feigning exasperation. “Not yet, but we’re getting there.”

Okri remains philosophical about his work and its shifting fate. “I’m older and something has happened to my own voice as a writer — it’s deepened and gotten abridged and simplified at the same time,” he said with a grin. “I think this is a wonderful time to be reintroduced to America. You’re getting golden Ben, you know!”

Anderson Tepper is a chair of the international committee of the Brooklyn Book Festival and curator of international literature at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh.