Journal Entry 1 by powerhouse from Culemborg, Gelderland Netherlands on Monday, November 29, 2004

Winner of the 1991 Booker Prize. From a review at Amazon.com:
In the decade since it won the Booker Prize, Ben Okri's Famished Road has become a classic. Like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, it combines brilliant narrative technique with a fresh vision to create an essential work of world literature.

The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself and the tale he tells is full of sadness and tragedy, but inexplicably he is born with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected. But in their efforts to save their child, Azaro's loving parents are made destitute. The tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits propels this latter-day Lazarus's story. 

Journal Entry 2 by powerhouse from Culemborg, Gelderland Netherlands on Monday, November 29, 2004

gereserveerd voor Olifant 

Journal Entry 3 by Olifant from Porthmadog, Wales United Kingdom on Friday, January 14, 2005

En via maupi bij mij terecht gekomen. Beiden bedankt! 

Journal Entry 4 by Olifant from Porthmadog, Wales United Kingdom on Tuesday, March 01, 2005

I'm not the only one who wants to read all the Man Booker Prize winners: Tantan
I have offered this book as a bookring: Bookringlist 

Journal Entry 5 by dodau from Ellesmere Port, Cheshire United Kingdom on Thursday, March 03, 2005

Only two parcels this morning. Not too many books then. But then I opened them and they each had two books. Soon I will have to sleep in the rabbit hutch. 

Journal Entry 6 by dodau from Ellesmere Port, Cheshire United Kingdom on Saturday, March 19, 2005

Normally I would hate this book. Nothing seemed to happen in it. Azaro was a spirit child and hence could see other spirits but apart from that it just seemed to be a few months in the life of a very poor African family. 

Journal Entry 7 by dodau at Surface Mail in Fellow Bookcrosser, A Bookray -- Controlled Releases on Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Released 7 yrs ago (3/22/2005 UTC) at Surface Mail in Fellow Bookcrosser, A Bookray -- Controlled Releases

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

 

Journal Entry 8 by Jenatleisure from Chobham, Surrey United Kingdom on Thursday, March 24, 2005

arrived by post this morning as part of the Booker ring.
On no it sounds very like Midnights Children which I am still reading and will be for some time.

Ill just have to pace myself.

thanks powerhouse for sharing this book.

24th April - after several false starts I am now getting on with this one better had the morning to take a good crack at it as suggested and am beginning to get there.
 

Journal Entry 9 by Jenatleisure from Chobham, Surrey United Kingdom on Wednesday, May 04, 2005

This book was just so descriptive at first I found it really hard to get into. Dodau had suggested that I should read it in big chunks so I took a deep breath and just leapt in... Then I came face to face with the horrors of every-day life in a poor African settlement through the eyes of a child.

The effects of politics, violence, poverty, ignorance and disgusting living conditions are described in excruciating detail

Unfortunately I think I missed the whole point of the book behind the spirit child Azaro. I was never quite sure whether Azaro's hallucinations and sighting of spirits were because he had the vivid imagination. Maybe he just spent too much time drinking intoxicating palm wine at Madam Koto's bar. I really found it all very confusing especially the last paragraph. Maybe I need to read it again more slowly and it will become clear.

Having said all that it was superbly written and I really enjoyed it.

Thanks for sharing it Olifant, without BC I would not have read this.

Will send of this week to zzz
 

Journal Entry 10 by zzz from Rakovica, City of Belgrade Serbia on Tuesday, May 17, 2005