₦airaland Forum

Rossikk:
If you've never read Ben Okri, you're doing yourself a great disservice. The Famished Road, his most famous work, and Songs of Enchantment were great, but the imagery employed in those books may be unsettling for some. Ironically those are the works that have gained him the most acclaim. I suggest Astonishing the Gods for a short, crisp novel, and for a more conventional epic, Infinite Riches or Dangerous Love.

Well put Rossikk, dangerous love was great read. I always felt though he never quite matched Famished. Road with the other sequel, songs of enhantchment.
Glad you are here and a lover of literature. I was inspired by you to join nairaland..I admire the way you defend the black brotha not for the sake of mere solidarity but as a truism-that all races are equal but varieties of reason, some in fact external forces and the same people we adore have oppressed other races.
I shall not quite be as shall we say, heavy handed to others as you do..more of a yan to your yin. persuading them to be more circumspect about their beliefs
Respect brotha

Volksfuhrer:
You still have not shown why Achebe's TFA is better than Okri's Famished Road. You only reduced your choice to taste, which isn't objective. Ranking presupposes an objective criterion, no?

But I didn't ab initio make an attempt to show one is better than the other, I just made a point which by the way, is the agreed norm that one fiction especially of different genre cannot be 'greater' than another..
Can you say Hemingway the old man... Is better than vs Naipaul masque of Africa..both are literature but of different variety.
Appreciate writers and don't bother so much about ranking..you could.compare good, bad and great writers.
Achebe to my mind given his whole opus is on a higher plane to Okri. But that's is not precise science just an opinion.

hifaif:
You must be a joker to think Achebe tops in Africa. A novelist who only wrote 5 novels and couldn't even replicate his masterpiece. Even that Things Fall Apart is overrated. He was lucky to have published the book at the time he did. If you have read the Famished Road or Sello Duiker's Hidden Star, then you would know that TFA is overrated.

No, I disagree. Tfa is not overrated..okri famished road is magic realism, Tfa is a sociological work, that is well written..its like comparing apples and watermelon. Both are fruits but of different taste. They are both good works in their own rights.
Achebe is a great writer and we don't measure how good a writer is by his production levels but by profundity. Examples abound of writers who wrote just one or two masterpieces.

1. Achebe: for bringing the world attention through things fall apart.he wrote it when he was 27 years.
Sit down and digest that.27 years old

2. Soyinka; what has not been said about the great man.
From poetry to plays and then novels, he has few rivals in the world presently. His crowning moment, the Nobel prize still unequalled By another black African writer since 87

3. Adichie; Achebe literary daughter. The lady sure can write.

4. Ben okri; has there been a better magic realism from.Africa since Famished road? Don't think so.

5. Teju Cole; highly cerebral. Soyinkaesque in his use of the devices of literature.

6. Sefi Atta: distilled fiction writing, very witty.
I would include Okey Ndibe among them, his latest novel, was a tour de force. Foreign God inc.
His essays are also very well written.

Not read the rest OP but special mentions to
Helon Habila for winning the Caine prize. Have not read his works

Nigeria is blessed with writing and am not talking about the jargons of Patrick Obaighbon.

In the north, I enjoy the essays of Gimba Kakanda. The brother is good.

Nothing makes a day like good fiction.