"Man Booker-winner Okri's modern allegory specifies and beautifully renders the impact on the human spirit when people are deprived of history and truth. Written with a striking simplicity that belies the significance of its message, Okri's tale is especially resonant in our current post-truth environment."
--Booklist, Starred review

"Haunting and inspiring...In this story of political abuse and existential angst, Okri employs a powerful and rare style reminiscent of free verse and evoking a mythical timbre. This is a vibrantly immediate and penetrating novel of ideas."
--Publishers Weekly, Starred review

"Okri's somber, fablelike novel is a call to rally against oppressive institutions and for broader social consciousness. In that regard, it's an inheritor of The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451, and Things Fall Apart...Okri's writing is sturdy and graceful, fully inhabiting the authoritative tone of mythmaking."
--Kirkus Reviews

Included in Publishers Weekly's Literary Fiction Adult Announcements for Spring 2020, Notable African-American Titles for Fall 2019-Spring 2020, African-American Interest Adult Titles, Fall 2019-Spring 2020, Science Fiction and Fantasy Preview for 2019-2020, and Science Fiction and Fantasy Preview for 2019-2020 (African Diaspora-inspired SFF)

"Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace, and uncommon power."
--Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Included in Publishers Weekly's Science Fiction and Fantasy Preview for 2019-2020

Included in Publishers Weekly's Science Fiction and Fantasy Preview for 2019-2020 (African Diaspora-inspired SFF)

"The Freedom Artist represents a heady jumble of influence and inspiration, a tapestry of biblical reference, mythology, folklore and fable. The lyrical simplicity of Okri's prose, with its short sentences and chapters, only heightens the power of the novel's political message."
--Financial Times

"A multilayered allegorical narrative that cuts to the heart of our current political and cultural malaise, while maintaining a mythical, mesmeric flavor that makes the reader feel these are stories they have always known...It's savagely political, disturbing and fiercely optimistic, the deeply felt work of a writer who refuses to stop asking the hardest questions."
--Guardian (UK)

"Just as you're thinking, 'So this is what Dave Eggers's The Circle would be like if it were written by a poet, ' Okri slips you a shot of ayahuasca and things get decidedly freaky and apocalyptic...A beautiful and timely appeal for the importance of books, subversive stories and love."
--The Times (UK)

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 that to find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question.

Karnak's search leads him into a terrifying world of deception, 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.