Ben Okri novel “The Freedom Artist” available in Italian.

Ben Okri’s most recent novel The Freedom Artist has been available in Italian as La Liberta since July 4, 2019.

Ben Okri is one of the most garlanded names in African writing with work in film, theatre, and TV, as well as novels and collections of poetry, short stories, and essays. His novels include Flowers and Shadows (1980), The Landscapes Within (1981), The Famished Road, (1991), Songs of Enchantment (1993), Astonishing the Gods (1995), Dangerous Love (1996), Infinite Riches (1998), In Arcadia (2002), Starbook (2007), and The Age of Magic (2014). He won the Booker Prize for The Famished Road in 1991.

In 2018, he announced his first novel in half a decade, The Freedom Artist, which had the following blurb;

In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the Prisoner? When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization. To find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question. Karnak’s search leads him into a terrifying world of lies, oppression, and fear at the heart of which lies the Prison. Then Karnak discovers that he is not the only one looking for the truth. The Freedom Artist is an impassioned plea for justice and a penetrating examination of how freedom is threatened in a post-truth society. In Ben Okri’s most significant novel since the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road, he delivers a powerful and haunting call to arms.

There is an Italian translation available for those who experience their literature best in that language. The translation was done by E Malanga, who incidentally also did the translation for Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, and was published by La nave di Teseo, one of the most respected in Italy, on July 4, 2019.

You can get a copy of the book on Amazon here.