Magical Realism and the Decolonization of Literature
Reclaiming while Integrating Literary Cultures in Ben Okri’s
Astonishing the Gods
Roos Schiffer
St. no. 10166998
MA thesis Literary Studies: English, University of Amsterdam
Supervisor Dr. Jane Lewty
June 30 2015
MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 – On Magical Realism
1.1: The ‘Third Space’: Critical Approaches
1.2: Dream Logic: Interviews & Essays
1.3: Introducing Astonishing the Gods
Chapter 2 – Astonishing the Gods as Decolonial Narrative
2.1: Nature and Neo-Romanticism
2.2: The City as Postcolonial Space
2.3: The Journey Archetype
2.4: The Language of Decolonization
Chapter 3 – Themes of Decolonization
3.1: Childhood
3.2: Relearning/Healing
3.3: Universality
3.4: Magic
Chapter 4 – Context & Discourse
4.1: Literature & Nation
4.2: Reclamation through Integration
Conclusion
Bibliography
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I have read the UvA guidelines on plagiarism, and hereby state that this thesis is my own
work.
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Magical Realism and the Decolonization of Literature: Reclaiming while
Integrating Literary Cultures in Ben Okri’s Astonishing the Gods
Introduction
The development of the postcolonial nation brings with it the development of its literary culture.
In Africa, ancient traditions of oral culture have transformed into a unique way of storytelling
in its written word. However, the influence of European literary culture is also undeniably
present in postcolonial African fiction. Many present-day countries like Nigeria were originally
founded by British colonizers, and even after its independence the fact that for many years
Nigeria was considered a part of the British Empire cannot be overlooked. Establishing an
independent, national and postcolonial literary culture is imperative for a blooming nation.
However, the complex and cruel ties to a former colonizer undoubtedly influence its national
literature, especially when this colonizer is still a world power, and its language a lingua franca
in many situations. In this thesis, I will set out to prove that reclaiming a literary culture can be
done without denying a connection to others. To do so, I will look in particular at Ben Okri’s
1995 novel Astonishing the Gods. Okri was born in the year 1959 in west central Nigeria, to an
Urhobo father and a half-Igbo mother, but spent years of his childhood and the majority of his
adult life in England. Although he is often referred to as a Nigerian author, he also has close
ties to England. In many ways, Ben Okri bridges the gap between the two nations. As a resident
of both countries, he is familiar with each of their traditions and cultural heritage, and this
familiarity is visible throughout his work. The chapters that make up this dissertation will
describe the ways in which Ben Okri’s work can assist in the process of decolonizing literature,
and how reclaiming African literature can possibly be done while integrating European literary
culture, and reaching out to an international audience. Astonishing the Gods is not overtly
political; the novel does not pass judgment on any nation or its people. Rather, it provides a
hopeful, yet honest narrative that is rich in symbolism and welcomes interpretation. The book
follows an invisible young man searching for the secret of visibility. Instead, he finds an island
where all the inhabitants are invisible like him. Several spirit guides test the protagonist by
making him solve riddles and face life-threatening challenges, hoping that he will realize that
his invisibility is actually an advantage. The book concludes with a moment of enlightenment
for the protagonist, who finally learns to accept his invisibility. The purpose of this dissertation
is to analyze the ways in which the works of Ben Okri, a “binational” author, can help further
the goal of decolonizing literature, and what part his magical realism as represented in
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
Astonishing the Gods can play. Hardly any scholarship has been devoted to this novel in
particular. The reason for this is a mystery to me, and a terrible shame at that.
The novels of Ben Okri are often described as “magical realist”. Although this term
might be a contested one, for the purpose of my thesis I shall refer to his literary style as such.
It designates a fluid perception of time and space, and an incorporation of “magical” or
“supernatural”—or simply traditionally mythical in a non-European sense—elements like
spirits, mythical creatures, other dimensions, etc. in a real-world setting. Brenda Cooper rightly
states that
Magical realism strives … to capture the paradox of the unity of opposites; it contests
polarities such as history versus magic, the precolonial past versus the post-industrial
present and life versus death. Capturing such boundaries between spaces is to exist in a
third space, in the fertile interstices between these extremes of time or space. (Magical
Realism, 1)
The seemingly oxymoronic nature of the term “magical realism” in fact quite accurately
describes how the style works. Narratives that use magical realism blur the boundaries
described above by Brenda Cooper. The “magical” aspects play with ideas of realism, but do
so in a way that makes the combination appear natural. What the reader perceives as “magical”,
the characters find unsurprising, normal aspects of their day-to-day lives. In literature, “magical
realism” was first used to describe a genre of fiction that originated in Latin America, and is
still commonly used to refer to writers like Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel
García Márquez. The use of the term “magical realism” to refer to non-Latin literature is
sometimes criticized, as it implies a certain degree of eurocentrism. It has to be said that
“magical realism” often does refer to literature that borrows from non-European folklore, but
the connotation of the term is hardly negative. It should be understood that the magical realism
of Borges is distinctly different from that of e.g. Salman Rushdie or Ben Okri. In this thesis, I
am most of all interested in the tools and stylistics often associated with the magical realist
style. I want to argue that Ben Okri uses magical realism in Astonishing the Gods to deepen the
Euroamerican understanding of African literary traditions, by creating a mythical dreamscape
which does not resemble any nation in particular, giving it a symbolic rather than a
representative function.
Chapter one of this dissertation will establish in more detail why Ben Okri in particular
is an important author to consider. I will analyze how different critics review his work, and
where they place Okri in relation to magical realism and other literary traditions. It will be
compelling to investigate whether these different views are mutually exclusive, or whether there
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is a common ground that can shed some light on how Okri’s magical realism manifests itself.
In this chapter, the introductory points made above will be expanded on in the light of these
critiques. Part two of the chapter will analyze essays by and interviews with Ben Okri himself.
This will help create a comprehensive basis for the rest of the dissertation, combining academic
articles with Okri’s personal opinions about his literary project. Finally, the chapter will briefly
introduce Astonishing the Gods, before diving into more detailed analysis in the chapters that
follow. The aim of chapter one is to place Ben Okri and his work in the context of my research,
and to point out his importance and relevance in as much detail as possible, while also
introducing Astonishing the Gods and why this novel is particularly suitable to discuss in the
light of the process of decolonizing literature.
Chapter two will analyze Astonishing the Gods more closely. I will work outward from
four distinct topics to explore the ways in which the novel represents a search for
decolonization. Firstly, the chapter will consider the depiction of the natural world as a symbol
for the decolonized space. The second part will look at the city in Astonishing the Gods as a
postcolonial urban ideal. After this I will discuss the main narrative of the novel, namely the
protagonist’s journey towards enlightenment, in relation to a more universal journey towards
decolonization. Finally the chapter will conclude by looking at the importance of both realism
and magical realism in decolonizing literature. Chapter three will focus on some of the major
themes in Ben Okri’s writing; Childhood, Relearning/Healing, Universality, and Magic. These
themes recur throughout Okri’s fiction and non-fiction, and close readings working outward
from them will help to support the idea that Okri’s views of the postcolonial world are expressed
in Astonishing the Gods.
The final chapter of this thesis will consider Astonishing the Gods and Okri’s
philosophies in relation to broader contextual issues regarding the decolonization of literature.
The chapter will bring thoughts from the first three chapters together, while furthering the
argument by linking them to the topics “literature and nation” and “reclamation through
integration”. In the first part I will look at issues of language and nationality. In the second half
of chapter four I will return to some of the key elements of this thesis, to see how Ben Okri’s
literature can assist the process of decolonization and reclamation, without denying a
connection to other literary cultures with his universalist fiction.
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
I
On Magical Realism
The aim of the first chapter of this dissertation is to create a comprehensive critical framework
regarding Ben Okri’s magical realism. This chapter is primarily observational, so as to provide
a clear view of existing criticism that will serve as a basis for my line of argument. The first
part of the chapter will look at academic articles that concern themselves with Ben Okri’s
writing, what their common views are and where they divert. In the second part I will look at
essays by and interviews with Ben Okri, to see how he himself reflects on the magical aspects
and important themes in his writing. Finally, I will briefly introduce Astonishing the Gods,
which will be further explored and more closely read in the chapters to follow.
1.1. The ‘Third Space’: Critical Approaches
Scholarship on Ben Okri shows three apparent stances on his affiliation with magical realism.
Several critics that concern themselves with the works of Okri have little trouble referring to
him as a magical realist writer, although their opinions on what “magical realism” entails differs
slightly. Others are critical of the term, either in relation to Ben Okri specifically or as a literary
style more generally. Finally, there is another group of scholars who try to omit the term
“magical realism” altogether, and rather focus on the “magical”1 aspects in Okri’s oeuvre as
representative of his worldview. They do not see it as a conscious choice but instead claim that
the entanglement of the “magical” and the “real” is merely an African way of portraying life
more accurately. Although these attitudes appear to clash, there is a general acceptance that
Okri’s novels present an interplay of magic and reality. The objections to the term “magical
realism” are mostly based on the supposed connotations of it; its links to postcolonialism and
postmodernism, its Eurocentric implications. The majority of articles written on Ben Okri’s
work do have similar views on multiple levels, and themes such as Hybridity, the Sublime and
neo-Romanticism, Transformation and Self-Actualization, and the Material and Spiritual
Realm recur throughout. By reflecting on several academic readings of Okri’s work and looking
for these underlying similarities, I want to present a comprehensive study of Ben Okri. Rather
than dwelling on the complexities of the term “magical realism,” I will take it at face value at
this stage, and instead create a critical framework for Okri’s fiction without focusing too much
on the contradictory political implications that the critics link to the magical realist
categorization.
1
E.g. the amalgamation of the spirit world and the human world, the fluid perception of time, transfiguration,
etc.
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A pivotal text that explores magical realism in West African fiction is Brenda Cooper’s
surprisingly titled “Magical Realism in West African Fiction” (1998). Her exposé is compelling
because it presents not merely an inclusive overview, but also introduces the complex
contradictions that exist around magical realism. Cooper does voice a clear opinion on the
subject, but at times loses track of her argument in a spiral of inconsistency, making the
conclusion of her book slightly surprising. She clearly explains her view of magical realism on
the first page of the book2, but takes a step back when she states that “[m]agical realist writers
have an urge to demonstrate, capture and celebrate ways of being and of seeing that are
uncontaminated by European domination. But at the same time, such authors are inevitably a
hybrid mixture, of which European culture is a fundamental part” (17). After claiming that there
is a “third space” in which magical realism exists, Cooper goes against herself at length,
presenting ways in which several writers are more on one side of the paradox than the other.
She moves between these two views quite a lot. Early on, she acknowledges:
Hybridity, the celebration of ‘mongrelism’ as opposed to ethnic certainties, had been
shown to be a fundamental aspect of magical realist writing. A syncretism between
paradoxical dimensions of life and death, historical reality and magic, science and
religion, characterizes the plots, themes and narrative structures of magical realist novels
… The plots of these fictions deal with issues of borders, change, mixing and syncretizing.
And they do so, and this point is critical, in order to expose what they see as a more deep
and true reality than conventional realist techniques would bring to view. (32)
However, in the chapter on Okri, she states that “[on] the one hand, [Okri] opposes the slavish
imitation of Western forms and ideas. This gives rise to the search for a pure, pre-colonial past,
linked to projects of national reconstruction. On the other hand, there is his love of change and
celebration of the transformations arising out of interactions with other cultures” (74). Cooper
appears to not be quite convinced of the idea of total hybridity, the existing in a third space,
even though she presents this image herself on the first page of her study. She is very much
concerned with the paradox, which is much more interesting to her than the third space itself.
Although she does not present a particularly negative opinion of Ben Okri, she concludes her
book with the statement:
However, [B. Kojo] Laing, Okri and [Syl] Cheney-Coker, are ultimately themselves
contradictory hybrids of cosmopolitan magical realism and nationalistic decolonization.
For all the enormous intellectual challenge of their work, Okri an Laing all too often fall
into the labyrinthine web of their own linguistic threads and leave the reader stranded.
(226)
2
See page 3.
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
This conclusion supports her idea that total hybridity is almost impossible to attain, that there
is always some partiality involved, even if a writer attempts to exist in a third space. Cooper
concludes that although Okri attempts in his fiction to further the process of decolonization in
Nigerian national literature, he is too “cosmopolitan”; he writes for a predominantly British
audience.
A scholar who has few objections to the idea of hybridity in Okri’s fiction is Mabiala
Kenzo. In his article “Religion, Hybridity, and the Construction of Reality in Postcolonial
Africa” (2004), Kenzo argues that Okri combines two types of magical realism, “one in which
the magic is in the style and another in which the magic is in the material” (256). Whereas the
first type creates a magical parallel universe, distinct from ordinary life, in the second type “[it]
is reality itself that is magical, fantastic, fabulous, or simply nightmarish” (257). Kenzo states
that Okri’s world “is a single coherent world in which the spiritual dimension of life is
intrinsically linked to the physical which it shapes. This universe, though conceptually coherent,
is not existentially harmonious, but cacophonic. Okri’s genius is in the fact that he discerns
within this cacophony the creative force of hybridity” (258). Hybridity for Kenzo, particularly
in an African context, “supports the idea that social and subjective identities are socio-cultural
constructs which result from complex ‘cut-and-mix’ processes” (260) and “[t]he universe
[Okri] creates is, indeed, a quilt made up of pieces from different sources” (261). Whereas both
Cooper and Kenzo argue that the theme of hybridity plays an important role in the fiction of
Ben Okri, Cooper focuses primarily on the political agenda that might be behind the use of it,
arguing that if the “third space” is inhabited, which is highly unlikely, a writer can create a
universe where all is equal, while Kenzo claims that the use of hybridity simply acknowledges
the fact that “identities are socio-cultural constructs”. Although this observation does have
political implications, Kenzo does not attach an ideology to Ben Okri’s work the way Cooper
does. In addition, Cooper is of the opinion that Okri fails to achieve magical realism’s ultimate
goal; objective hybridity. Instead, she claims that he is too cosmopolitan—which can be read
as a synonym for “Eurocentric” in her use of it. Kenzo, on the other hand, regards hybridity as
a crucial aspect of magical realism, if not as its main characteristic. For Kenzo, hybridity is a
motive rather than a goal.
Although the title suggests it, Kenzo does not see magical realism as intricately related to
a postcolonial effort, rather he acknowledges it as a result of colonialism. The style in itself
rethinks the African context, not because it wants to, but because it has to. Critic Christopher
Warnes argues that magical realism does have reclamation as a central goal. In Magical Realism
and the Postcolonial Novel (2009), Warnes states that as “a postcolonial response to
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colonialism’s often brutal enforcing of selectively-conceived modernity, magical realism …
seeks to reclaim what has been lost: knowledge, values, traditions, ways of seeing, beliefs” (12).
He furthermore makes the observation that although Okri’s magical realism is to a certain extent
inspired by an African literary tradition, this does not mean that his writing is irrelevant in a
global context. He states that “the rejection of realism is also founded in an awareness … that
Western-style realism is epistemologically allied to the kinds of reason and rationality that
entered into a productive alliance with colonialism” (148), which implies that the use of this
type of magical realism in fact serves as a statement regarding colonialism. Kenzo and Warnes
voice similar opinions throughout their criticism, but perhaps they are not critical enough. All
three scholars mentioned above share the idea that the main objective of magical realism is
hybridity, urging the reader to inhabit Cooper’s “third space”. They agree that this is also Ben
Okri’s goal, or guiding motive at least, but only Cooper suggests that the third space is an ideal
that cannot (yet) be achieved. It is perhaps a more pessimistic view of where we stand in the
process of decolonization, though arguably also slightly more realistic.
Not all academics are fond of the magical realist label. To reflect on this, it is worthwhile
to consider two critics who dislike it for distinctly different reasons. Douglas McCabe rejects
magical realism and instead argues that Ben Okri’s writing is more in line with New Ageism
(“‘Higher Realities’: New Age Spirituality in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road”). McCabe
recognizes a Western fascination with non-western spiritualties, and claims that Okri plays into
this fascination, creating narratives that are specifically geared towards a European audience. It
seems that McCabe takes Cooper’s views to an extreme, as his conclusion suggests that Ben
Okri fashions the African worldview into something that is easier to “understand” for Western
readers. It cannot be denied that there are intriguing parallels between Okri’s writing and the
New Age belief-set. For instance, McCabe rightly notes:
New Age spirituality is a movement in which salvation and perfection are achieved not
by doing good works or obeying divine authority or having faith in a higher power, but
by looking inward to the Self and finding ways to free it from the anxieties and hang-ups
and perceptual cookie-cutters of the ego. For New Agers, global justice, ecological
harmony, and individual self-actualization go hand in hand. (7)
However, there are serious flaws in McCabe’s argument. His criticism of the magical realist
label as carrying a western bias can just as easily be applied to a New Age characterization. He
states himself that “the perennialist and detraditionalizing facets of New Age eclecticism work
to commodify the spiritualities of other cultures, erasing the rich histories and complex present
circumstances in which those spiritualities are embedded and, thereby, reducing them to
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
something more amenable to the Western consumer” (10). The manifestation of appropriation
inside New Ageist writing is severely critiqued by many, but a writer like Okri—who is in fact
African—can hardly be accused of appropriating African culture. Labeling him as a New Ageist
is clearly misguided. It appears that McCabe confuses the objectives of the writer with the
misinterpretations by certain readers.
Sarah Fulford also rejects the magical realist label, but for different reasons. In her essay
“Ben Okri, the Aesthetic, and the Problem with Theory” she argues that Okri “shrugs off not
only national labels, but also the theoretical categories of post-colonial, postmodernist, and
magic realist” (233) and that “he imagines an uncolonized cultural space” (234). It is striking
that although Fulford clearly expresses aversion to the usage of these categories in the case of
Ben Okri, her description of the shrugging off of labels is quite similar to what Cooper refers
to as the “third space”. Furthermore, Fulford rejects the New Age argument, placing Okri in a
neo-Romantic context instead. She states that “[like] a neo-Romantic prioritizing sensibility
over sense, Okri’s aesthetic rejects the Enlightenment reason of western modernity in favor of
astonishment, wonder, and enchantment” (245), and without even mentioning McCabe
specifically, goes on to say that “[as] a neo-Romantic rather than an old hippy, Okri turns to a
new aesthetic as it provides him with the utopian impulse for revision, action and change” (256).
Fulford emphasizes the importance of art and beauty in Okri’s writing. She argues that both
transcend politics; that the political implications of art and beauty are that they can exist without
political implications. Fulford replaces the magical realist label with a neo-Romantic one. This
works up to a certain extent, as it helps remove colonial implications, yet only covers a few
aspects of Okri’s literary project. Because she is so careful to avoid politics, she creates an
incomplete image. The issue she avoids—Okri’s national identity—is a defining issue for his
work.
Up to this point, McCabe appears to be the odd one out, but even though he takes a
radically different stance on Okri’s fiction, the New Age label he attaches to it makes visible
many intriguing connections between Okri’s worldview and the New Age interpretation of nonWestern belief systems. Although the critics do not agree on terminology, their underlying ideas
are all actually very similar; Ben Okri’s objective is to create a fiction that defies boundaries.
Between nations, between realms, between the real and the magical. There is a hint of neoRomanticism in his work, the Sublime is a returning theme3, and all recognize that the
decolonization of literature is an important motive in his work. Although they claim to disagree,
3
This will be further explored in chapter 2.
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the theories offered by above critics are more alike than they think themselves. A scholar that
offers a balanced perspective that unifies all that has been discussed in an impressively
comprehensive and logical way is Maurice O’Conner in his 2008 book The Writings of Ben
Okri: Transcending the Local and the National. He is one of the few critics that emphasizes
Okri’s binationality. He suggests that an author like Okri, who has moved to the United
Kingdom from an African country, can be classified as Afro-Modern, referring to a literature
style in which “postcolonial subjects negotiate new spaces within an ‘alien’ culture to play out
those complexities that come about when occupying the metaphorical border space of identity”
(101). He connects the magical to this idea by claiming that “Okri explicitly states in Wilkinson
(1992)4 that one cannot ignore the fantastic nature of Nigerian reality. The magic elements in
his fiction thus correspond to a world view that people believe as reality, rather than an aesthetic
exercise in mythopoetic” (98). The hybridity of what O’Connor calls the Afro-Modern, does
not center around the fact that there are binaries that can be combined to make a new whole.
O’Connor argues that “decolonization” is not a simple process where these binaries are
overcome, and also claims that the histories of the respective countries cannot be denied.
Instead, this hybrid represents “new sites of inscription that are valid in their own right and do
not have to be exclusively theorised as what they are resisting” (100). O’Connor’s view of
hybridity is much more balanced than Cooper’s “celebration of ‘mongrelism’”, but also implies
that Kenzo’s argument is still too focused on the construction of hybridity, rather than its goal.
Whereas Kenzo claims that hybridity serves to show that identity is constructed, O’Connor
takes this point further when he states that
Okri’s hybrid prose draws attention to the constructed nature of these fixed notions of
identity and culture, and his literary career is testimony to the fact that culture is in a
permanent process of transition … Seen in this light, the unifying idea of Okri’s literary
project can be defined as a manifestation of the African imagination through the English
book which produces a cultural difference that embraces all humanity. (144)
In other words, Okri’s hybridity according to O’Connor helps explore a new space, not a
‘mongrel’ but an evolution5.
Taking these academic approaches into consideration while trying to construct an
accurate image of magical realism appears challenging when academics seemingly disagree on
4
Wilkinson, Jane. Talking with African Writers. London: James Currey, 1992.
O’Connor’s understanding of the notion of hybridity is one that I support. For future reference, when using the
term it can be read as follows: “the process of hybridity is not a simple creolisation of rigid ‘traditions’, but the
translation of a sophisticated indigenous ontology into the English novel form that simultaneously maintains the
incommensurability of its cultural difference” (O’Connor, 136).
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
many levels. As I have tried to argue in this chapter so far, the underlying ideas are actually
quite similar. When we take away their judgment of the terminology, and distance ourselves
slightly from ideas of what has been achieved by Ben Okri, and instead focus on the objectives
of his work, many of the critics are actually making the same claims. In Okri’s literature, there
is an emphasis on transition and change, on identity within a cultural context, on enchantment
and myth, but mostly on hybridity. The main objective of Okri’s work is to come as close as
possible to Cooper’s “third space,” O’Connor’s Afro-Modernity, Fulford’s uncolonized space.
He wants to create a discourse to help a European readership understand, while simultaneously
helping an African readership feel understood. Doing so is not as easy as pointing to the issues
and making people admit they were wrong or right. Instead, there needs to be a new space,
where borders and binaries can be rethought in the present-day socio-political and literary
context. Nations around the world are developing, and countries that were once colonized are
becoming democratic, economic world powers. New and inspiring literary voices have unique
stories from all over the world to tell. The books we read are no longer written solely by old,
white Englishmen. Cultures are now richer and more diverse than ever, and academia and
politics cannot stay behind.
1.2. Dream Logic: Interviews & Essays
It is striking that Ben Okri’s own views are not often taken into consideration in critical readings
of his work, although he has no problem with sharing them. From his interviews and essays it
becomes clear that Okri is an optimistic man, who believes in a transcendental unity of
mankind, underlying all that we do. He expresses a view of his incorporation of the magical
that is similar to the one presented above, as a necessity for his particular voice. He believes
that art should not be easy, because life is not easy, art should not be rational, because life is
not rational. In other words, art should represent life in all its illogicality. Expanding on this, he
also states in an interview with Charles Henry Rowell that as soon as art—albeit literature,
music, or paintings—is produced, it belongs to the world, not merely to the person who created
it. This is in itself not a controversial statement, but Okri makes an interesting connection to
literature in the postcolonial world when he states:
this human oneness means that the great dreams that a people have don’t belong only to
them. We don’t live in a world where people are isolated from one another … we’re all
impinged on by other people’s dreams and ideas about how the world should be. Finally,
once it enters into the realm of art, it has to say goodbye to the people that it came from …
every important work of art is a world dream, a world contribution. (217)
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With this observation it becomes clear why the theme of hybridity is so often discussed in
relation to the work of Ben Okri. In his view, literature contributes to a “world dream”, meaning
not merely one people, but all people. If this is his philosophy it is not surprising that hybridity
is an important aspect of his work. He links the notion of artistic freedom to his idea of universal
freedom, saying that “[w]e’re content to send astronauts to space and to distant planets, and we
restrict our artists to their culture and their race and their tradition? That is madness. Freedom
is universal; limiting the imagination doesn’t make sense to me” (218). If limiting the
imagination is a consequence of national boundaries and implications of race/tradition, a
solution according to Okri might be to look for the universal in art. Although he acknowledges
that the African worldview plays a significant role in his fiction, he also stresses that similar
stories are present throughout cultures. In an essay for The Guardian, he makes the point that
“[g]reat literature … transcends subject … If the subject were the most important thing we
would not need art, we would not need literature. History would be sufficient. We go to
literature for that which speaks to us in time and outside time” (“A Mental Tyranny Is Keeping
Black Writers from Greatness”). Okri views great literature as having transcendental qualities.
Not merely does it transcend subject, it transcends boundaries of tradition and culture. He is
“fascinated by similar threads that run throughout philosophy that appear to come from the
primordial tradition … These threads running through so many cultures give me a sense not of
diversity, but of one source, a unity. Myths tell parallel stories” (Gray, 9). This statement offers
an intriguing insight into Okri’s use of the magical. He refers to it himself as “dream-logic
narrative” in a short article on The National (“Ben Okri: Novelist as Dream Weaver”). He
argues that "[e]veryone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody
has an absolute reality". A dream logic is arguably the closest Okri can get to a universally
understandable universe, a fictional world that everyone can make sense of in their own way.
However, creating a universal literary experience is a process that needs a universal awareness.
Okri does not assume that waiting patiently will change the world and that people miraculously
will unite as one. In his essay “Healing the Africa Within” he argues that “[we] love the America
in us. We love the Europe in us. The Asia in us we are beginning to respect. Only the Africa in
us is unloved, unseen, unappreciated … The first step towards the regeneration of humanity is
making whole again all these great continents within us” (A Time for New Dreams, 138). This
is Ben Okri’s objective, to make people see that “[we] have to learn to love the Africa in us if
humanity is going to begin to know true happiness on this earth” (137). He attempts to do this
with his literary style, one that looks for that which makes us all the same, but one that
simultaneously defies rationality and sensibility, for it would be a mistake to assume that people
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
are rational and sensible. He believes in the magical “third space” where we are all the same,
and believes that we are making progress as a people. In an interview with Nana Yaa Mensah,
Okri states that “There is an irresistible process of evolution … Don’t you see how history
seems to be accelerating? That it’s not possible any more to keep peoples so rigidly apart and
to keep this homogeneity so completely intact? Every day, migration is changing all these
hallowed corners, these places that wanted to keep themselves pure and on top” (16), once more
proving that Okri believes in the possibility of transcending national boundaries in literature.
1.3. Introducing Astonishing the Gods
Astonishing the Gods (1995) is the story of an invisible man who sets out to find the secret of
visibility. Instead, he finds an island where all the other people are also invisible, where several
spirit guides teach him valuable lessons about the universe and life. The world of Astonishing
the Gods is mythical and dream-like, and it does not resemble any particular country. All the
reader knows is that it is not the protagonist’s native land, but he must find his place in it
nonetheless. The dream-like qualities cannot merely be seen in the way the island is described.
The narrative progresses in a way that is reminiscent of a dream, where creatures and
surroundings transform and logic is not just non-existent, it is also not expected by anyone. An
acceptance of the dreamscape reality is not unusual for West African literature6, but the setting
in an already imaged location enables readers that are not familiar with this type of literature to
make sense of it by simply linking it to Ben Okri’s “dream logic”. Sola Ogunbayo recognizes
in Astonishing the Gods a narrative about change. He explains that “The change is to challenge
a current ideological process which has attributed universality to certain issues that are highly
contingent. To challenge the hegemonic structure of institutionalised iniquity and inequity by
searching for alternative patterns is the change that the nameless hero of Astonishing the Gods
seeks for” (“Prophetic Myth in Selected Fiction of Ben Okri,” 49). Ogunbayo’s reading will be
further explored in chapter two, but it is interesting to note at this stage that the narrative of
Astonishing the Gods can be interpreted in this highly symbolic way, one where the protagonist
does not merely represent one man’s search for meaning, but an entire nation if not continent’s
struggle. Although the novel is short, it uses highly symbolic and poetic language, and the ideas
presented through the story have several levels of interpretation. Moreover, Astonishing the
Gods is optimistic. The struggle is worthwhile, the novel ends with a kind of absolution. It is
See e.g. Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), inspired by Yoruban folktales, in which the
protagonist searches for his tapster in lands of the living and the dead, where he encounters many spirits and
supernatural creatures.
6
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an idealistic piece, but by no means radical. The book asks for acknowledgement, appeasement,
and acceptance, and in doing so it represents the objectives that the critics and Okri himself
deem important. The following chapters will provide an in-depth reading of Astonishing the
Gods, taking into consideration critical essays about the novel itself, but also essays that deal
with decolonization in literature more generally. Some of these theories have not yet been
applied to the work of Ben Okri, and only a few academic articles deal with Astonishing the
Gods. It would be worthwhile to place Okri and his work in the context of a broader discourse.
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
II
Astonishing the Gods as Decolonial Narrative
In this chapter I will explore how Astonishing the Gods represents a search for decolonization
on multiple levels. The first part will explore the use of the natural world to symbolize the
universality of the human experience. Using Sarah Fulford’s article, briefly discussed in chapter
one, I will analyze the significance of the link to neo-Romanticism, and how its ideas connect
to both magical realism and the project of decolonization. Part two will move from the natural
world to the city, using Sara Upstone’s article “Writing the Postcolonial Space” which
specifically deals with Okri and his use of the city as representative of political progress and
the search for identity and community as a touchstone. This section will also incorporate texts
by Abiola Irele and Roger A. Berger, who deal with issues of African writing and
decolonization more generally. Their ideas on community and the national versus the global
are worth considering in the light Upstone’s argument. The third section will analyze the main
narrative of the story, using Sola Ogunbayo’s aforementioned article, his notion of the “Journey
Archetype” and the theme of visibility. I will take issue with his individualistic approach, and
present a way in which the journey of narrative can be seen in a universal light. In the final
section I will consider the language of decolonization. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza and Kwaku Larbi
Korang are critical of the incorporation of the magical by way of helping the process of
decolonizing literature, and instead prefer a more realist approach. The section will take their
arguments into consideration and argue that both realism and magical realism play a vital role
in decolonizing literature, albeit on different levels.
2.1: Nature and Neo-Romanticism
There is a compelling link in Sarah Fulford’s essay between neo-Romanticism, magical realism
and the decolonized space (or rather, in her words, “uncolonized space”). She recognizes a
connection between Okri’s writing and ideas of the Sublime, stating that “Okri’s aesthetic
deliberately evades an Enlightenment rationale of being able to chart, to categorize, and to
know” (244). She states that for Okri “art is overwhelming, it wells over the brim of our
understanding or the limits we place upon it and tangles with our unconscious or the irrational”
(249), and that the artists serves as “a shaman … whose role is to conjure astonishment and
enchantment” (245). Okri achieves both by obscuring the boundaries between internal and
external, reality and magic. In this way, these neo-Romantic ideals work together with the
magical realist style of writing, resulting in literature not “as religion, but literature as spiritual
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awakening” (258), forming an uncolonized space that has supernatural, overwhelming
elements, yet presenting an ideal that can be pursued.
Astonishing the Gods is a highly symbolic book, and there are multiple sections that
show how Okri goes about incorporating enchantment and ideology. To elaborate on this I want
to look at the chapters in which the protagonist is faced with the challenge of crossing an
invisible bridge. In these early chapters, the protagonist is confronted with a “bridge, completely
suspended in the air, held up by nothing that he could see … composed entirely of mist” (16).
His first spirit guide urges him to try and cross it, regardless of his fear of perishing. Not
crossing the bridge would mean disappearing. The guide tells him “you will be worse than
nowhere. Everything around you will slowly disappear. Soon you will find yourself in an empty
space … You will become the statue of your worst and weakest self” (17). The protagonist is
left to find a way to cross the abyss by himself. He is determined to try, but is held back by a
sense of peace and calm while the world around him fades away. The nothingness surrounding
him “seemed the perfect place to rest, the safest harbour from so much anxious questing after
visibility” (20). His fear of failure causes the protagonist to find comfort in the idea of
disappearing without even attempting to progress, but he soon realizes that “the nothingness
that was devouring the visible world was now beginning to devour him” (20). It is critical to
note that later, the protagonist refers to the bridge as “the bridge of self-discovery” (30) and that
this section of the book can thus be interpreted as representing a struggle for exactly that: selfdiscovery. However, there is a level of threat present that implies more than just any person’s
search for selfhood. The fact that not trying to cross the bridge would result in a stagnant state
of terror, and that “it is better to try to cross that bridge and fail, than to not try at all” (18)
suggests an urgency, a responsibility even. The protagonist reflects that “he would remember
that terror also has its enchantment and uses. It was the terror of what he saw that probably
woke him up to the last moment of his old life” (21). The world would quite literally fall away
unless he attempts to contribute to progress, and perishing in the act of doing so would be better
than to stay behind and become meaningless and useless.
The bridge has several forms. These forms are the four elements: fire, water, stone, air.
Nature mimics the world here, and a single man’s powerlessness in the face of it is reminiscent
of the Sublime image7. The protagonist for instance describes that “[t]he white winds whipped
7
The awe-inspiring effects of the vastness of the natural world stir deep emotions in the protagonist. The Sublime
was first described in the first century AD in “On the Sublime” (Peri hupsous), a text ascribed to Longinus. He
argued that a capable writer/speaker has the power to cause “transport” or ekstasis in the audience by passionate
expression and “loftiness of thought”. The term was subsequently used by Edmund Burke (in Philosophical
Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757), whose key argument was that the
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
the last spaces on the highest mountain and all he could see below was the pure whiteness of
oblivion … He felt that he was living the meaning of his life for the first time” (22). The
difference here is that rather than observing its greatness from a distance, the protagonist has to
face it head-on. The faster he runs, the more the natural forces resist him. When he tries to run
back, “the dancing yellow flames raced down from his hair and began to consume his flesh”
(24). The protagonist is powerless to these forces, he has to keep adjusting, relearning how to
move forward, in order to survive. Moreover, it becomes very clear that running, panic,
desperation do not help. As is stated in the novel, “the most sublime lessons possible were
always learned and relearned” (28). In Astonishing the Gods, all the protagonist’s efforts are
eventually rewarded, and when “he did look back, however, he found himself at the end of the
most magnificent bridge he would ever see” (30). Once the crossing is completed, and the
protagonist has reached a safe distance, the bridge becomes a testament of glorious endurance.
Fulford calls Okri a “Blakean visionary”, as “there is ultimately no sense of retreat or
withdrawal in Okri’s aesthetic, but rather greater engagement as he believes art should intensify
our experience of the world” (257). The confrontational nature of this episode in the novel
suggests that you can run but cannot hide, and that it is better to trust your instincts in a moment
of terror, than to rationalize and overthink the situation. Although the safe distance is removed,
the instinctual and irrational mode of thought does imply a sense of Romanticism in Astonishing
the Gods.
2.2: The City as Postcolonial Space
Moving on from the natural to the urban environment in Astonishing the Gods, the idea of the
City as a postcolonial space is explored by Sara Upstone in her article “Writing the PostColonial Space: Ben Okri’s Magic City and the Subversion of Imperialism”. She discussed the
idea mainly in relation to Okri’s The Famished Road trilogy, but several aspects of her theory
can be applied to Astonishing the Gods as well, even though the two books differ significantly
in setting. The Famished Road is set in a nameless African country during a civil war, whereas
the island in Astonishing the Gods appears desolate as its inhabitants are invisible and often
quiet. Yet Upstone’s more general arguments about the city space offer a powerful starting
observer ought to be safely distanced from a dangerous situation to experience a “delightful horror”, see e.g. PB
Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” (1816). Later Kant divides Burke’s definition of the Sublime into two kind, namely the
“mathematical sublime” (sublime of magnitude) and the “dynamic sublime” (terror at safe distance), in his Critique
of Judgment from 1790. He also contends that the sublime is in the mind of the observer rather than in the object
that inspires it. The notion of the Sublime has since been written about by philosophers like Schopenhauer, Hegel,
Lyotard, and many others.
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point for an analysis of its representation in Astonishing the Gods. She states that “the city is
the wider world, an unnamed archetype of all conquered places, a space in which the issues of
colonialism are played out, mirrored, often without an awareness on the part of the city’s
inhabitants that this is their cause, or that they hold this wider significance” (149). When the
city is first seen by the protagonist of Astonishing the Gods, he proclaims that “[t]he buildings,
in their perfection, looked like some kind of dream-created illusion. He was puzzled by the
monumentality of things” (8-9). The perfect and monumental quality of the island’s buildings
can be ascribed to their archetypal appearance. It might not look like any particular city, but it
does resemble what a city looks like in a person’s mind. It is a dream-created illusion of
“grandeur and majesty” (8), a stereotype of the perfect city. However, the city on the island
does not always look the same; it quite literally transforms before the protagonist’s eyes: “all
about him, the city was yielding its forms. Houses seemed to turn into liquid … fountains
dissolved into fragrances. Palaces became empty spaces where trees dwelt in solitude” (40).
Upstone describes the city as “constantly changing – not under the direct pressure of real events,
but due to the altered conception that such events inspire” (150). If the original city was a
representation of the colonial ideal, the protagonist’s experiences on the island alter the way in
which he perceives it, according to his shifting notions of what it should look like.
The protagonist comes to the island looking for an answer. He is invisible and wants to
learn the secret of visibility. The text being highly symbolic, it is open to interpretation.
Arguably, the protagonist of Astonishing the Gods stands for the African voice that wants to
find visibility in a European language. This is, in a way, what Okri is doing as a writer, and the
themes of visibility apply nicely. In this light, the transformation of the city—which happens
as the main character of Astonishing the Gods becomes wiser—stands for the reclamation of
the African voice, starting from the European archetype, and changing gradually into a more
authentic one. In his compelling exposé titled The African Imagination: Literature in Africa &
the Black Diaspora (2001), Abiola Irele explores “a coherent field of self-expression by Black
writers in relation not only to a collective experience but also to certain cultural determinants
that have given a special dimension to that experience” (4). He makes the important observation
that the idea of Africa itself exists in a more global context due to the colonial past, and
colonialism’s influence on not only the external vision of it as a continent, but also its inner
workings, its border, its nationalities. He states that “precisely because of the developments in
the New World and their consequences for our notion of Africa, the term “African literature”
itself can be restricting, since it excludes a dimension of experience that brought it into being
in the first place” (7). It implies that even the use of a term like “African literature” has a colonial
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
connotation, that the works are “situated in relation to a global experience that embraces both
the precolonial and the modern frames of reference” (7). Roger Berger recognizes this trend,
and argues that “any reading of African literature … must be both specific and global—and
must account both for the synchronic realities that emerge from the localized experience of
specific writers and for the diachronic, historical developments that presented different
imperatives for different historically situated writers” (“Decolonizing African Autobiography,”
47). A representation of an African world, leading from this, always also has to bear in mind its
global context. It appears that Africa in its own right has no place in the international literary
milieu. Irele summarizes this idea as follows:
Perhaps the most fruitful way of characterizing modern African literature in European
languages in order to understand what appears to be its double formal relation … is to see
it as an effort to reintegrate a discontinuity of experience in a new consciousness and
imagination. For the modern African writer, it has not been enough to attempt to come to
terms with that experience; rather, in the new literature, what we encounter is a constant
interrogation of both self and the original community to which that self is felt to relate in
a fundamental way. (16)
The city of Astonishing the Gods represents this interrogation, and the protagonist eventually
finds this self, the invisible self: “[h]e didn’t see the things of the city; he saw the things that
weren’t there … He saw how alive the invisible places were” (64). With this, the African and
European blend into one; the visible archetype and the invisible man’s perception of it.
Returning to Upstone, “instead of national or regional affiliation, there is what may be described
as a hybridity that transcends such categorization in favour of a universal humanism” (151-2).
In a world where the visible façade of the city is the archetype of the colonial ideal city, a “new
consciousness and imagination” allow the protagonist to re-contextualize it. This results in a
working together of opposites. The “solid facades, the strong lines, the massive abodes, the
square-shaped clusters of rooftops, imposing on the outside, hid tenderness and gardens on the
inside” (Astonishing the Gods, 65). That this tenderness lies hidden at the city’s core, means
that it is harder to discover, but also increases its significance. Once the global context of the
novel is acknowledged, the reader can peel back its layers in order to reveal the narrative in its
own right.
2.3: The Journey Archetype
The development of the protagonist on the island is further explored by Sola Ogunbayo. He
introduces the idea of the Journey Archetype in his essay “Prophetic Myth in Selected Fiction
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of Ben Okri”. Ogunbayo makes several appealing observations about Astonishing the Gods, but
there are levels on which he fails to place the novel in an accurate context. Although the
underlying ideas of the paper are compelling, he focuses too little on the international
implications of the Journey Archetype he discusses. He explains that
The Journey Archetype is about a hero in search of some truth to restore order and
harmony to the land. It often includes the series of trials and tribulations that the hero
faces along the way … Okri’s interest hinges on transformation and change … the quest
for transformation and change personifies the process of seeking out new options; tearing
down what no longer serves … For the perennial issues in Africa … the Journey
Archetype is apt in capturing the lost values such as discipline, collectivity, respect,
communality and hard work. (42-3)
Looking at Astonishing the Gods using this approach is a valuable set up for the discussion of
the novel as representative of the journey towards a decolonized literature. However, Ogunbayo
instead chooses to focus more on the individual journey of self-actualization for the postcolonial
subject. He states that “[t]o save Africa in this century the inner rugged individual must brave
loneliness and isolation to seek out new paths” (43). Of course this is not an incorrect reading
of the text—the reader follows an individual searching for his purpose—but there are many
ways in which the narrative seems to represent a more collective ideal. An obvious example is
the simple fact that the protagonist has no name, he is a vessel for a general ambition, he is no
one in particular and thus stands for everyone. Furthermore, like a young free nation, the
protagonist has to re-dream, re-imagine, re-contextualize the world and his place in it. Only
when he succeeds in this, after imagining the “master dream” in which “the people promised to
the heavens that out of their agony they would make a wonderful destiny … they pledged to
initiate on earth the first universal civilization where love and wisdom would be as food and
air” (131), can he join the invisible illustrious ones. They gather to share their visions for the
future, much like a union of countries gathers to solve world issues. Ogunbayo does not oppose
these bigger ideas underlying the text. He states for instance that “[i]n Okri’s mythic view, the
future could be saved from the incongruence of divide-and-rule tacticians, if only there were a
strong sense of stressing socio-political harmony and institutional coherence” (52), but shirks
from reading the text in a universalist way, favoring the more individualistic interpretation.
Rather than a move inward, I want to argue that the novel presents a move outward, painting
the image of a nation ready to join the world with a fully formed identity.
Another important theme that Ogunbayo touches upon is that of visibility. The
protagonist begins his journey looking for “the secret of visibility” (4), but eventually he finds
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
that it was “odd and beautiful that he who had left home in search of the secret of visibility
should have found a higher invisibility, the invisibility of the blessed” (159). Ogunbayo claims
that “Visibility in this context means the quest for validation, acceptance and society’s
confirmation … The seeking of visibility is a sign of weakness, imitation and parody. We must
make our own visibilities or else we would be lost in other people’s vision” (53). Once more
Ogunbayo’s statement has incredibly interesting implications on an international scale, though
he merely links it to the individual. Visibility as acceptance suggests a surrendering of identity,
a willingness to adjust, whereas pride in invisibility can be read as a move from conformance
to reclamation. Nonetheless, invisibility is still inextricably linked to visibility, implying that it
refers to the African representation in a global context rather than merely a national or African
struggle towards constructing identity and community. As Maurice O’Conner states, “Okri as
a Nigerian-Londoner writes from the double consciousness of one who lives on the borders of
culture. His narrative is conceptualised through a non-organic sense of community where no
one single discourse can lay claim to originality or authority” (The Writings of Ben Okri, 143),
and it is of pivotal importance to see his work not as establishing simply an African voice, but
a hybrid voice of the postcolonial world, where boundaries of nationality are blurred.
2.4: The Language of Decolonization
This is the burden that has faced the African intelligentsia: … how to address the three
fundamental quests for parity, purity, and personhood—equality with Europe, difference
from Europe, and humanism denied by Europa, in short, how to realize the perennial
pursuits of African nationalism (“Africa’s Struggle for Decolonization,” 123)
With this statement, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza opens his discussion of how the language of literature
helps the process of its decolonization. He observes that the African intelligentsia transcends
binary constructions, as Africa as it is often perceived—not just by Europeans, but also by
Africans themselves—was invented by colonialism (124). It is thus impossible, according to
him, to ignore the influence of Europe on present-day Africa. The reclamation of its culture has
to occur on the global stage, not merely to prove to the western world that Africa has its own
identity, but also in order to re-contextualize its own place in the world. Zeleza goes on to
investigate the work of Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe, and the research presented in the paper
reveals ideas about the language of decolonization that question the value of magical realism,
or other styles influenced by oral culture, African myth and spirituality, etc., while favoring
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Achebe’s “tragic realism”8. By doing so, Zeleza contradicts himself, as he states early on in his
essay that “African nationalisms, like other nationalisms, were not only invariably complex,
often contradictory, and always changing, but also multiple and multivocal in their expression”
(125). Rather than claiming that Okri’s is simply a different nationalism, I want to argue that
although Achebe’s achievements are of cardinal importance, they are a step behind in the
process of decolonizing literature.
Zeleza bases his view of Achebe on an essay by Kwaku Larbi Korang when he argues
that “Achebe reclaims the cohabitation of Africa and Europe in the normativity of the real and
the tragic, the sociohistorical and the modern, of the human and its existential contradictions,
and their mutual transparency and translatability” (126). Korang writes in an essay from 2011
that “Achebe is a post-Eurocentric writer who revokes and reworks the aesthetic models that
his Eurocentric predecessors have otherwise confined to the fixing and reaffirmation of the
West as sole or exclusive possessor of humanistic common sense. Achebe aims therein to affirm
a proprietary humanity in intercultural common sense” (2). Korang’s main argument is that by
“underwriting a thesis of humanist interchangeability” using “mimetic reciprocity”(8), Achebe
debunks the Eurocentric notion that rationality and “humanity” are non-existent in the African
continent. His tragic realism suggests a translatability of the European experience, proving a
“human(ist) likeness” (8) between the two continents. Although Achebe’s is a valuable effort,
and although the acknowledgement of humanistic equality is vital in the postcolonial world, it
does not reflect the uniqueness of the African continent, and it does not necessarily help the
process of decolonizing literature when the voice that is used mimics a European one, rather
than reclaiming an African one. Zeleza does not ignore the more African inspired literary voice
in his essay, but is critical of its effect:
Many of Achebe’s followers sought to reclaim cultural authenticity and aesthetic
originality by peppering their work with the riddles and proverbs of local languages and
invoking the enchanting … But this gave rise to another misconception in the reading of
African literature, a tendency to see the appropriation of oral narrative as a return to
authenticity based on the historically inaccurate supposition that Africa is ontologically
oral, while writing is European. (127)
In other words, Zeleza sees dangers in using the magical as a means of reclaiming identity. He
fears that literature that relies on “magic” might inspire a sense of exoticism in the European
reader, that rather than helping decolonization it will prevent progress, as it enables the
8
A term used by Kwaku Larbi Korang in “Making a Post-Eurocentric Humanity,” 2011.
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
European reader to return to the colonial idea that African culture is less advanced. Yet Chinua
Achebe himself makes a valuable counterargument when he states that there is a “small and
proprietary school of critics who assure us that the African novel does not exist. Reason: the
novel was invented in England. For the same kind of reason I shouldn’t know how to drive a
car because I am no descendant of Henry Ford” (Morning Yet on Creation Day, 54). I think
Zeleza underestimates the possibilities of magical realism. I have tried to establish that
Astonishing the Gods, and Okri’s oeuvre at large, does not merely rely on African “aesthetic
originality”. Like many other scholars, Zeleza himself acknowledges that Africa exists in a
global context, as it is a global concept. To exist in present-day Africa is to exist in a hybrid of
pre-colonial traditions, colonialism’s influence, the postcolonial search for identity, and
Africa’s relationship with the rest of the world. This hybridity is a key aspect of Okri’s writing,
and the transcendence of boundaries of nations, nationality, internal and external, real and
magic, physical and metaphysical, of pivotal importance in the magical realist style. Humanist
interchangeability is not ignored in it; hybridity is its representative. It cannot be denied that
Chinua Achebe has had an enormous influence on the perception of African literature in the
international literary community, and I am not denying the value of his ethos. His work has
played a vital part in the progress towards decolonization, but I am hesitant to agree with Zeleza
in its part in the process of decolonization. If we understand decolonization as a reclamation of
a national—or continental—identity, and the decolonization of literature as a reclamation of its
literary voice, a style that uses “mimetic reciprocity” simply does not fit that description. The
move away from imitation to hybridity is a move away from acceptance to reclamation. Both
stages are indispensable, and both are still relevant, but the latter does follow the former, rather
than the other way around.
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III
Themes of Decolonization
The articles discussed in the previous chapter present a fascinating image of Astonishing the
Gods in relation to the process of decolonization. This chapter will take these arguments further
by analyzing several themes in the novel in more detail, themes that recur in essays by and
interviews with Ben Okri. With these close readings it will be asserted that the novel clearly
presents some of Okri’s statements concerning the decolonization of literature. Furthermore
this chapter will close by linking these ideas to Okri’s use of magical realism. It needs to be
disclaimed that the novel, thankfully, does not attempt to find a solution to existing problems.
This would have been unrealistic and would have made the novel harder to consider in the light
of this discussion. Instead, certain ideologies are shared about the way in which to approach
issues of decolonization. Okri suggests that if people can change the way they think about
African culture, and Africa in relation to the rest of the world, if people can see the underlying
similarities of all cultures, this will be the first step towards decolonization. Okri reflects on this
using several important themes. By linking these to the narrative of Astonishing the Gods, this
chapter will further enlighten how literature that is inspired by both sides of the dichotomy, that
looks back to African tradition, but also looks forward to a more unified world, is a step forward
in the process of decolonizing literature worldwide.
3.1: Childhood
Although his age is never revealed, it can be assumed that the protagonist of Astonishing the
Gods is not an adult. The book describes is the story of a young man in search of his identity as
an “invisible” person, it is in a way a magical realist version of the traditional Bildungsroman.
The protagonist’s invisibility is a given in the novel; he really is invisible. Yet it can quite easily
be linked to national or racial identities, as on the first page of the book it is described that “[i]t
was in books that he first learnt of his invisibility. He searched for himself and his people in all
the history books he read and discovered to his youthful astonishment that he didn’t exist” (3).
It is the kind of conclusion a child will come to; he is not represented outside of his community,
therefore he must be invisible. The imagination of a child is much more lively, and choosing to
tell this story from the perspective of a young person enables Okri to create more freely. Yet it
is not merely the protagonist’s proneness to mix reality and fantasy that makes him a suitable
main character. Okri attaches significant value to childhood more generally. In A Time for New
Dreams he states that “[c]hildhood is an enigma, a labyrinth, an existential question, a
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
conundrum. It is the home of all the great questions about life and death, reality and dream,
meaning and purpose, freedom and society, the spiritual and the secular, nature and culture,
education and self-discovery” (10). In other words, the child is more open to the possibilities
of hybridity. There is less need for resolution; one reality does not cancel out another. This is
not necessarily very ground-breaking, generally children are perceived as “innocent” and
“neutral”, but Okri sees in childhood a possibility for change that is of pivotal importance in
his literature. It is not accidental that A Time for New Dreams, a collection that deals with
notions of Africa in a postcolonial civilization, centers around the theme of childhood, with
four essays in it dedicated to the subject. In the last of these, Okri writes that “[c]hildhood is
the great puzzle, the marvelous symbol, the emblem of the quintessence, the magic mirror, the
little grail, the missing key to our future … Childhood is about discovery. We rediscover the
world, and are tempted to begin the grander journey of self-discovery” (110-11). In Astonishing
the Gods the protagonist makes this exact journey, crossing the bridge of self-discovery early
on, and solving puzzles throughout the book—e.g. when he needs to “solve the riddle of the
gate” (61) by deciphering an iron scroll. The protagonist realizes that “the words were a law he
had known all his life, a pitiless law which when forgotten creates its own punishment. And the
punishment was that of complete abandon, till the condition of the words was reached” (63).
The vital importance of re-discovering manifests itself in all of the book’s puzzles. The
protagonist is urged to retain an open mind, like that of a child, when solving them.
The theme of childhood fascinates Okri not merely in its literal sense. In addition to
reflecting on the development of individual human beings, it is also applicable to the
development of a people as a whole, and the development of a young nation, or a continent
reborn. In an interview Okri further states that childhood “is a time when we dream. Let’s bring
back this pure way of seeing” (“Ben Okri: Novelist as Dream Weaver”). In chapter two I
reflected on the protagonist of Astonishing the Gods as representative of a collective ideal.
Expanding on this, I want to argue that it is the youth of the protagonist that suggest the true
ideology. Early on in the novel, the protagonist’s first guide tells him:
Many of our greatest men and women have been here for hundreds of years and have
never seen the unicorn. You have just arrived and you have seen it … The council will be
delighted by this … we have been awaiting your arrival for a long time. If you survive
what is to come, if you make it to the great convocation, it is possible that you are the one
who will initiate the new cycle of the Invisibles. (11-12)
The Invisibles have been on the island for such a long time that they can no longer dream. The
protagonist’s youthful gaze enables him to see unicorns, or in other words, magic. This can also
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be linked back to Fulford’s argument; the ease with which the overwhelming, enchanting, and
irrational forces on the island are accepted by the protagonist is reminiscent of Romanticism, a
movement in which emotion triumphs over “common sense”. Okri writes that “[t]he best
observations of children ought to have a place in the academies of the world. It is not just the
innocence of childhood that should command our attention. It is also its unseeing, or rather its
pure seeing, uncontaminated by structures of habit” (A Time for New Dreams, 11), suggesting
that if we can be set free from these structures of habit, we will have the freedom to re-dream
and re-shape the world, without being restrained by expectations.
Near the end of the novel, three masters share their visions of a reimagined world in the
presence of “all the illustrious ones” (135), including the protagonist. It is a gathering of great
thinkers, and one that is necessary due to serious problems in the world of Astonishing the Gods.
Rather than giving a speech consisting of words, however, the masters present their ideas in the
form of an image, in which everyone present dwells for a moment. The need for a fresh start is
expressed in images of new life in each of the speeches, e.g. “the dreams of a newborn babe
and the first moment of emerging flowers” (140) in the second speech, and “the laughter of a
happy child … bird-calls at dawn … the vision of beautiful things flowering from great
suffering”9 (142) in the third speech. These examples illustrate that “childhood” is not merely
a symbol of openness and imagination, but also signifies the possibility not just of change, but
of renewal. If each new day is seen as a newborn child, the importance of education and love
over capitalism and politics becomes glaringly obvious. Childhood is a time of possibility.
Okri’s magical realism shows that youth of thought is not exclusively for the young, but adults
have to keep rediscovering their youthful selves. If they succeed, they can learn to believe in
the possibility of change again.
3.2: Relearning/Healing
Once freedom has been obtained, it has to be put to use effectively. Astonishing the Gods shows
how easy it is to get stuck in our ways, and the island’s spirit guides keep insisting that the
protagonist relearn to experience everything fully. They claim that “[a]nything you are not
aware of you have to experience again … if you weren’t aware of it, you didn’t pass it. You
didn’t experience it” (46), and mindlessness is a fatal flaw. Ogunbayo’s individualist approach
discussed in chapter two is more sensible here, as the necessity of mindfulness is each person’s
responsibility. Ogunbayo argues that bewilderment is of vital importance, stating that it
9
My italics.
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
“foresees a future guaranteed by the sustained character of curiosity, wonder, and search which
are all connotative of research. There is not progress without research” (51). From this it can
be deduced that Ogunbayo’s article, although focusing mainly on the individual, definitely has
implication for the collective project of decolonization. He duly notes that in order to progress,
there needs to be a constant flow of criticism, a constant awareness of the world around us. In
the novel, the protagonist is reminded of the fact that “learning what you know is something
you have to do every day, and every moment” (17), not just for one’s own sake, but for
posterity’s sake as well. Okri himself acknowledges this as well, claiming that “[t]he individual
drives on the collective, but the collective also carries the individual” (“‘The Book of Laughter
and Forgetting’”, 16). A significant symbol early on in the book in connection to the importance
of relearning is the “great square patterned in black and white, as if it were a giant chessboard”
(5). The game of chess has a playful element—it is a board game—but it simultaneously
requires focus, strategy, intelligence. The players need to be able to predict what might happen,
but have to adjust after every single move, have to relearn how to “play the game” as it
progresses. The books contains several more obvious puzzles that the protagonist needs to
solve—the mystery of the bridge, the riddles of the spirit guides—but the island itself is also
constructed like a game, with its chessboard square and mazelike geography. When the first
spirit guide says to the protagonist that “[u]nderstanding often leads to ignorance” (30) this
appears oxymoronic, but linked to the idea of progress and research it is actually incredibly
sensible. When something is “understood”, there is a sense of finality, of conclusion. Okri defies
“understanding”.
The myth of Europe is the story of the light fertilising the intellect. The heart cries out in
the myth. Euripides heard that cry and elaborated, from the ancient rituals, the birth of
Dionysus for the awakening of the European heart to the beautiful chaos of wine, to
spiritual possession, to faith, to unknowing. The terror of the sublime must be encountered
again. This, it seems, was the warning that Euripides shaped: Do not deny the
immeasurable mysteries. Surrender to the god that you cannot comprehend. Or great
diseases of body and mind will invade your lives; and your conquests will be changed
into the emptiness of the absurd; and you will dwell in the existential wastes of the spirit
and the heart. You will dwell without wonder. (A Time for New Dreams, 118)
It is bewilderment, mystery, magic, wonder that allows a person to always be open to change,
progress, new possibilities. There is no finality, we never stop learning. It would be a mistake
to assume we can ever truly “understand”; it is a myth. A statue of an “equestrian rider”
symbolizes this in the novel, who “[w]ith the hand bearing the shining sword of truth, … was
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pointing ever-forward to a great destiny and destination, never to be reached, because if reached
the people and their journey would perish” (87).
The constant need to reassess the “game”, as symbolized by the game of chess, is also
found in the process of healing, which plays a vital role in Astonishing the Gods, and Okri’s
writing more generally. It is a practice that symbolizes much more than merely the health of the
people, especially when linked to Okri’s penultimate essay in A Time for New Dreams, “Healing
the Africa Within”. In it, he states that “[w]hen the Africa outside is sick with troubles, the
Africa inside us makes us sick with neuroses” (134). In other words, this external and distant
“illness” will eventually make the healthy sick as well, and so in order to remain healthy, Europe
needs to heal Africa. In Astonishing the Gods, “[t]he masters of the land believed that sickness
should be cured before it became sickness. The healthy were therefore presumed sick. Healing
was always needed, and was considered a necessary part of daily life” (69). This statement
implies that the answer to sickness lies not in curing that which is ill, but that it is the
responsibility of the healthy to stay healthy, and to reach a level of health that reaches outwards.
This “healing the healthy” bears similarities to the symbol of chess described above. Simply
because you made the right move at one point in the game, does not mean you will not make a
wrong move later on. Health needs constant nurturing and evaluation. Furthermore, if the world
around you is in distress, this will ultimately affect your personal wellbeing as well. In
Astonishing the Gods is it stated that “[c]ontemplation of the sea and of the people’s origins and
of their destiny was considered the greatest cure for sickness before it became sickness” (6970), and in the context of “Healing the Africa Within”, this destiny is “to make Africa smile
again” (ATFND, 139), and the greatness of this possibility should be enough to motivate an
active healing of “the Africa within”. The world needs to be seen as one big family, and caring
for each other, making each other happy, ultimately as most important. Nothing is more
devastating than to see a mother/father/brother/sister in misery. We are all connected, and the
Western world needs to work to make their success and their happiness Africa’s as well.
3.3: Universality
Universality has been an important theme throughout this thesis, and I have reflected on its
representation in Astonishing the Gods in several ways already. I have discussed the protagonist
and the island as vessels for universal ideals using the essays of Fulford, Upstone, Ogunbayo,
Irele, etc., but want to return to the topic once more, combining it with the crucial perspective
of Okri himself to come to a final overview of the importance of universality in Okri’s work in
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relation to the process of decolonizing literature. I want to argue that Okri recognizes the
debatable nature of “African literature” as discussed by Irele and Berger. Although his essays
clearly state his personal concerns with intra-continental relationships, his fiction is deliberately
ambiguous when it comes to geography. This can be interpreted in several ways. On the one
hand, Okri chooses not to make a claim for African literature in its own right, i.e. an
understanding of African literature that has no colonial implications. This might suggest that
Okri himself sees no solution for this semantical problem, which has such a significant impact
on how African literature is perceived. However, I want to claim that rather than looking for a
solution that works from the inside out, Okri’s work offers a possible solution—or at least a
possibly positive development—that works from the outside in. It is incredibly optimistic, but
perhaps more realistic than changing a word’s entire connotation. Okri’s hope, his dream, is
that when people realize that the human experience is universal, borders will start to blur.
According to Okri “[a]ll of humanity is really one person. What happens to others, affects us.
There’s no way out, but up. Let’s all rise to the beautiful challenges of our age, and rise to our
true mysterious luminosity” (ATFND, 95), and this is ultimately the goal in Astonishing the
Gods as well. Near the end of the novel, the masters of the Invisible realm state:
The best things in the world dwell in the realm of pure light, from where they spread their
influence to all corners of the universe, to stones and men and worms, and even to stars
and the dead and to angels. We are learning to be masters of the art of transcending all
boundaries. We are learning to go beyond the illusion that is behind illusion … In our
silence we dedicate ourselves to the perfection of our spirits, consecrated to serving the
highest forces in the universe. We do not want to be remembered, or praised. We only
want to increase the light, and to spread illumination. (148-9)
Irele claims that “literature in Africa does not quite function in the limited national range
suggested by the conventional association between literature and nation … [g]iven the
decidedly multiethnic and multilinguistic character of African states” (6), and in his view this
places Africa in a peripheral position, when for Okri this is, in fact, the ideal that all literature
should strive towards. Once all literature transcends boundaries of ethnicity, there is no need to
rely on a term like “African literature”, as all literature is simply literature of the world.
Another way in which Okri attempts to, in his own way, fight colonial implications of
African literature, is by attacking the idea that African writers can only write about suffering,
slavery, civil war, misery, in order to receive critical acclaim. He writes:
The black and African writer is expected to write about certain things, and if they don’t
they are seen as irrelevant. This gives their literature weight, but dooms it with monotony
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… Great literature is rarely about one thing. It transcends subject … It is time that black
and African writers woke up from their mesmerism with subject … Literature is the index
of our intelligence, our wisdom, our freedom. We must not let anyone define what we
write. (“A Mental Tyranny Is Keeping Black Writers from Greatness”)
It is an crucial argument that once again concerns itself with the universality of the human
experience. As long as all “important African novels” deal solely with these subject of misery,
it is the only view of Africa that the rest of the world sees, and it becomes increasingly difficult
to see that people from the African continent know happiness, love, hope, celebration, when
this is so severely underrepresented in their literature—or rather the selection of work by
African writers that is read by an international audience. The issue of subject matter in African
literature is perhaps more complex than Okri describes it, as it is not simply an issue of what is
being written, but more importantly an issue of what is being read, and what the reader knows
about the literary context of a novel. Maurice O’Connor rightly notes that “while Yoruban
metaphysics does hold a central part in Okri’s narrative epistemology, one can identify
intertexts with Buddhist and Shaman philosophy, and other Western discourses such as classical
mythology and romanticism” (111). As this is not common knowledge, readers might not
recognize the text’s intertextuality. The question is whether the basic knowledge of African
writers and their direct community is comprehensive enough for their literature to become a
part of an intertextual literary world, or whether it will only cause further misconceptions. This
is a question neither I nor Okri can answer, only time can tell, but his idea that the representation
of African people through literature is limited is certainly true. There needs to be literature about
suffering as it is a vital part of life and so it should be a vital part of literature, but it is not the
only part. Once African people are shown as a diverse people that can hardly be categorized
under the same label, it will become easier to see the universality of all of humanity.
3.4: Magic
One final theme that needs to be considered in this chapter is that of magic. At this stage in the
dissertation Ben Okri’s use of magical realism has been explored quite extensively, but it should
once more be clarified how this type of literature assists the process of decolonization. For Okri,
magic, spirituality, and the universality discussed in the previous section are all intricately
linked. Mabiala Kenzo duly notes that “Okri’s work would read as an effort to create a parallel
universe that, for instance, brings together the modern worldview, with its empirical outlook,
and the African worldview, with its traditions that accept the supernatural as part of everyday
life” (257), and to bring all of these aspects together, Okri relies on myths—because “[m]yths
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
tell parallel stories” (Gray, 9)—and spirituality—because ““the spiritual constitutes the central
things that makes us human … the spiritual is true for everybody. It is a domain that is in every
human being, in our makeup” (Rowell, 215-6). Another important aspect, like Kenzo observes,
is obviously the “African worldview”. Yet I want to argue that although Okri is very aware of
the discrepancies between the “African worldview” and other worldviews, he does not want to
limit himself by focusing on any one worldview, but instead places his literature in a “third
space”. For him, this is simply a sensible way of producing literature, or any work of art. He
observes in an interview:
It is a startling and singular act of ungenerosity to say that an artist is going to dream for
only this small bunch of people on this great globe. And yet, they put this dream-art into
the world. If they are going to put the dream-art into the world, they should also put a
sign with that dream saying “For English people only,” or “For black American only” or
“For Nigerians only.” It doesn’t work like that. (Rowell, 217)
It is a common assertion that once an artist puts his creation out into the world, it is no longer
their property, nor responsibility, it is now “of the world”. Okri clearly shares the opinion that
this is how it should be, but sees that at present works of art often are not totally judged in their
own right. Even his own universalist fiction that does not specify any geographical location is
linked to Africa, and an “African worldview”, presumably because Okri is Nigerian. However,
as was noted in chapter one, Okri instead prefers the term “dream-logic narrative”, and his use
of the magical is a tool for him to create a parallel universe where these different “worldviews”
do not exist, or as Kenzo states, “[t]hrough imagination Okri explores the limitless possibilities
of ‘what could be’ as a way to escape the tyranny of ‘what is’” (259).
In Astonishing the Gods, magic does not merely manifest itself in a “traditional” sense—
i.e. mythical creatures, ghosts, spells, shapeshifting, etc.—but also when dealing with “reallife” issues, and topics that are specifically interesting in the light of this thesis such as change
and understanding. The latter has been referred to in the second part of this chapter, but it is
helpful as a starting point to consider the former. The spirit guide’s statements like “[n]ames
have a way of making things disappear” (6) and “[u]nderstanding often leads to ignorance” (30)
are echoed by Okri himself in the interview with Charles Henry Rowell, in which he states that
“[a]nything that can be completely understood fades. What keeps us interested in artistic
creation is the fact that we think we’ve got it, we go to sleep, wake up, look at it, and we’ve lost
it again”. Okri then goes on to say that “[c]hange is the territory of our relationship with art and
the universe. Because life itself is so fluid and the future is constantly defined and undefined.
That’s the magic of it” (218). It might seem banal to refer to this statement, as Okri literally
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uses the word “magic”, but it makes more sense than one might think. For Okri, the
mysteriousness of life, and the many possibilities that the undefined future holds, is what makes
life similar to magic. It is unpredictable, surprising, and if a person were to know everything
that would happen in their life, it would take away all the meaning and purpose of it. From this
it can be concluded that Okri’s use of magic is simply his representation of what life is, and
should be like. Furthermore, when people see that socio-political constructs, like e.g. national
identities, are not as set in stone as they sometimes seem, when they see that life is magical,
they can learn to dream and hope again. This is the same process that the protagonist of
Astonishing the Gods goes through. He reaches the island convinced that life as one of the
Invisibles is hopeless, but eventually finds “a higher invisibility, the invisibility of the blessed”
(159).
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MAGICAL REALISM AND THE DECOLONIZATION OF LITERATURE
IV
Context & Discourse
Throughout this dissertation I have tried to accurately describe the ways in which Ben Okri’s
magical realism helps respond to the process of decolonizing literature. In this final chapter, I
want to point once more to the bigger contextual issues underlying the discussion, and how Ben
Okri’s philosophies reflect on them. He does not claim to have an answer, but does nurture a
burning ambition to bring about change, and his novels present an ideal that might not be
achieved, but can be pursued. I want to stress once more that these issues are complex, and that
the aim of this thesis is to add to the discussion, not to pass judgment or make unfounded claims.
This chapter brings aspects of the previous three chapters together, but will also introduce a few
new sources, in order to make sure that ideas are developed further, rather than reiterated. The
chapter will work outward from two larger themes, namely “literature and nation” and
“reclamation through integration”. The former will look into issues of language, and
implications of binationality on literature. The latter will return to a key element of this
dissertation, and look at how Okri’s literature helps in the process of decolonization and
reclamation, without denying a connection to other literary cultures. Here, it will be considered
how Okri’s universalist fiction serves this specific purpose.
4.1: Literature & Nation
“Literature” and “nation” could hardly fail to belong together: from the very start they
were made for each other. Once African intellectuals took up the concept of literature, the
African debate about literary nationalism was inevitable. (Appiah, 161)
African nations have a unique history. Before colonists “established” present-day nations, like
Nigeria in 1914, there were no clear-cut national borders. Rather, before British influence began
in the early 19th century, greater West Africa was dominated by several empires, such as the
Benin and Songhai empires, and groups like the Yoruba and Hausa lived in tight-knit
communities, each with their own traditions and language. The national borders that
colonialism brought with it created groups of people of the same nationality that often did not
speak the same language. To this day, more than fifty years after achieving independence in
1960, 512 distinct languages are spoken in Nigeria alone. It is not surprising that the issues and
complexities of language are an important issue in the discussion of the decolonization of
literature. Although English is at present an official language in multiple African nations, a key
question for decolonization is how literature can be decolonized if the language used is that of
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the ex-colonizers, the language of the oppressor, rather than the oppressed. It has been a topic
of discussion for quite a long time, as well. Kwame Anthony Appiah acknowledges in his 1988
article “Out of Africa: Topologies of Nativism” that
For language here is, of course, a synecdoche. When the colonialists attempted to tame
the threatening cultural alterity of the African … the instrumentalities of pedagogy were
their most formidable weapon. So that the problem is not only, or not so much, the English
or the French or the Portuguese language as the cultural hegemony that it represents.
Colonial education, in short, produced a generation immersed in the literature of the
colonizers, a literature that often reflected and transmitted the imperialist vision. (155)
Although his is not a recent text, it seems as though criticism on the subject has not made much
progress. Appiah states that “[e]ven when the colonizer’s language is creolized, even when the
imperialist’s vision is playfully subverted in the lyrics of popular songs, there remains the
suspicion that a hostile Sprachgeist is at work” (156-7). This is echoed by Abiola Irele when he
talks about the colonial connotation of the term “African literature” thirteen years later, which
is reiterated by Roger Berger another nine years later. I touched on how Okri’s work can be
interpreted in relation to this in the previous chapter, but dealt more with “African literature”
and its implications in a geographical sense than regarding language, and thus want to return to
the subject here. It is Chinua Achebe that offers an intriguing insight into the use of English in
African literature. He discusses the issue as early as 1964, and states that “African writers who
have chosen to write in English or French are not unpatriotic smart alecs with an eye on the
main chance—outside their own countries. They are the by-products of the same process that
made the new nation states of Africa” (Morning Yet on Creation Day, 57). He goes on to say
that “I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience.
But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered
to suit its new African surroundings” (62). Years later, in an interview with Charles H. Rowell,
he claims that his English “has witnessed peculiar events in my land that it has never
experienced anywhere else. The English language has never been close to Igbo, Hausa, or
Yoruba anywhere else in the world. So it has to be different” (Conversations with Chinua
Achebe, 176-7). Leading from his opinion, I want to suggest that language depends on each
individual’s contextualization of it. It is difficult to discuss the connotation of a word, when a
connotation is more a psychological response than something that can be put into words, and
therefore it is prone to change over time. If writers constantly needed to consider the
connotation of what they write for everyone who will read it, they would never get anything
down on paper. Achebe’s argument is liberating. Instead of focusing on how language defines
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him, he defines his own language. He contends that “[a] language spoken by Africans on
African soil, a language in which Africans write, justifies itself” (Morning Yet on Creation Day,
50). Okri proclaims “fellow members of the human race, de-censor your minds. The mind is
the only true place of freedom. Let’s protect that freedom within by constantly asking questions,
by thinking clearly, by transcending our traditional and habitual modes of thought” (ATFND,
89). This affects these ideas of language as well. If writers are limited mentally, they will also
be limited creatively. Okri states that “[t]he basic prerequisite of literature is freedom. And the
first freedom is mental freedom” (“A Mental Tyranny”). In this case, artists should be able to
use whatever language in whichever way they want. A person justifies their language by using
it, and if the goal is to communicate a message to as many people as possible, English often
serves that purpose better than any other language. This is of course connected to the colonial
past, and it should not be forgotten or disregarded. However, to play the devil’s advocate, this
global development has enabled humans from all over the world to communicate, and has also
helped people understand the world’s twisted past, hearing it from the horse’s mouth rather than
from the jockey’s (or the horse whisperer’s).
For Ben Okri, and many other contemporary writers and artists who deal with issues of
race and nationality, the question of language is infinitely more complex. Migration and moving
around the world has become so common that people often “belong” to more than one country.
For many people, language is a barrier more than it is a defining characteristic of one’s
personality, and English serves as a lingua franca in many cases. Nevertheless, languages are
often linked to nations, and a valid question is what remains of Nigeria in Okri’s writing if he
neither lives there nor writes in one of its native tongues. Moreover, if universality is what Okri
preaches, is there room for Nigeria at all, or is the “universal” a predominantly English realm?
However universal the presentation of the island in Astonishing the Gods is, the verbal
expression of its inhabitants is still in English, so arguably there is not as much of a balance as
Okri likes to believe. Maurice O’Connor refers to the “diasporic consciousness as an ambivalent
space of cultural enunciation that cuts both ways” (139). As a Nigerian Londoner, Okri has to
move between two cultures, and although he searches for a middle ground, there is always
going to be criticism from both sides. Although Brenda Cooper, for example, thinks Okri is too
“cosmopolitan”, others might not want to read his work because it is not “cosmopolitan”
enough, and borrows too heavily from non-European literary styles to be an accessible read.
Yet Okri is not merely attempting to move between two cultures. According to him “[w]e are
all of us mixtures, and our roots are fed from diverse and forgotten places” (A Way of Being
Free, 100), and “[t]rue literature tears up the script of what we think humanity to be” (ATFND,
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61). Ben Okri’s writing is not simply about his binationality, his desire to be able to simply “be
human”. Rather, he wants the idea of nationality as a personality trait to disappear altogether.
For him, “[t]he dream is to create a bridge of the imagination. The hope is to share in the fun
and the marvel of the creative spirit” (ATFND, 61). Acknowledging Africa’s equality with the
rest of the world, its ability to dream and to create, will open up new possibilities. This
acknowledgement needs to come from continents other than Africa itself, which explains why,
if there is an imbalance due to his writing being in English, his work is directed at a reader who
might not have crossed the bridge yet. This reader is represented by the protagonist of
Astonishing the Gods multiple times. The first example is when he is literally challenged to
cross the bridge of self-discovery, as described earlier in this dissertation. Later in the novel,
the protagonist meets a dwarf-like figure who urges him to leave the island.
Be free of this impossible place, this rigorous land, where everything is guided by the
wisdom of suffering, and where the journey towards perfection continued without hope
of every arriving. Find joy! Live your life! Make your mistakes! Enjoy life’s illusions!
Don’t become invisible, don’t turn to stone. Don’t seek impossible loves, find possible
ones! … Soon you will arrive at the destination you’ve been seeking since you left your
home. (109)
Yet the protagonist “without knowing why … thought of his first guide” (110) after considering
what the figure has said. In the beginning of the novel, the first guide tells the protagonist that
“understanding often leads to ignorance” (30), and it is arguably this that he is reminded of
here. It would be ignorant of him to think that leaving the island would lead him to his
“destination”, at this stage in the novel he is already uncertain whether this destination even
exists. The dwarf-like figure appears to be suggesting that the protagonist can still opt out of
facing the reality of his invisibility, but the protagonist knows that this would only make him
disappear into nothingness, which he learned when he was faced with the challenge of crossing
the bridge. I want to argue that Okri is making a strong claim here. The reader can choose to
ignore Africa and its struggles, but the reader cannot be unaware of it. Even when choosing to
“[e]njoy life’s illusions”, this does not mean that one does not recognize these illusions. Okri
has already made clear that one can choose to not cross the bridge, but that the consequences
would be severe.
4.2: Reclamation through Integration
I want to return to what Zeleza calls Africa’s “quest for parity, purity, and personhood”. In
chapter two, I argued that Ben Okri’s magical realism reconfigures “humanist
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interchangeability” through its use of hybridity, and that rather than “copying” a European style
of writing to show parity and personhood, Okri reflects on it by transcending boundaries of
nation/literary culture. Yet one question remains. Okri’s “third space” serves the quest for parity
and personhood particularly well, but it is more complicated to say the same about purity. As
his main goal is to show the world that humanity is all the same, this does not necessarily help
the project of reclamation, i.e. showing how African literature and culture is significant and
special in its own right. I want to argue that there is more to Okri’s universalism than simply
the desire to be “one people”. Although she is somewhat critical of Okri’s project, Brenda
Cooper provides a good starting point to describe how Ben Okri helps the quest for purity as
well. She states that
Magical realists inscribe the chaos of history not by way of unity, but by means of plot
that syncretize uneven and contradictory forces. Utopia, recurrent in magical realist
dreams … stands for the possibility that such unity might ultimately be achieved in
societies where this currently appears only as a slight hope. This is because the societies
in such writing are in transition. (36)
Cooper is right to note that there is a sense of ideology and something that could be described
as Utopia (although Okri prefers the term “Arcadia”) in magical realism. However, for Ben
Okri “the societies in such writing” are not specifically African; they present an ideal future
where societies are mixtures of cultures. To him, the world is in a constant state of transition,
and this is not limited to one continent or several countries. According to Okri, “[w]e’re caught
in a perpetual chain of cause and effect. No one is ever going to come along and say, this is
how I want the whole world to be … the universe is outside the grasp of the whole of humanity
put together” (“‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting’,” 15). In Astonishing the Gods, the
“dream of the Invisibles” is “to create the first universal civilization of justice and love”10 (155).
Rather than dreaming of what their civilization should look like, the Invisibles dream of an
enlightened way of living and being in the world. Yet there is a complexity to Okri’s ideal, as
his view is that diversity is what unifies human beings. He does not merely wants people to
acknowledge that there is no difference, rather he want to point out that there is, if anything,
too much difference between every single person living and dead. The “mixture” that he
envisions is not an amalgam or melting pot where different people blend into one, but a
patchwork quilt. When envisioning it in this way, it becomes easier to see that the issue is not
merely about the collective, but that the individual patches, in all their difference, help to create
10
In the novel these quoted lines are in capital letters.
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the complete quilt. Okri writes that “[w]e are the sum total of humanity … It is Africa’s turn to
smile … That would be the loveliest gift of the twenty-first century” (ATFND, 138-9), and
throughout the rest of his essays and interviews, he implies that in order to achieve the possible
utopia/arcadia, Africa needs to be respected as equal to the other continents, but praised
individually.
This is where the debate about magical realism becomes crucial. The notion of “magical
realism” can be somewhat of a double-edged sword, and it is clear to see why when linking it
to Zeleza’s idea of parity, purity, and personhood. Although magical realism definitely shows
ways in which African writing (or other non-European writing that uses the style) is unique,
how underlying traditions and cultures seep through, and how people perceive life differently
in other parts of the world, it also runs the risk of creating a distance that is so big that it
diminishes the sense of parity (equality with Europe) and personhood (humanism denied by
Europe). It is a literary style that demands a compromise on both sides, in order to achieve that
magical “third space” in which prejudice does not exist. Sadly it is no secret that this ideal is
still far from being realized today, but it is not so much achieving it that is at the core of Okri’s
literary journey. I explored in previous chapters how Astonishing the Gods reflects on the
importance of constantly re-learning, and that adjusting to change is just as significant as
heralding it. The ideal future visions presented by magical realism do not focus on one ideal
destination. Astonishing the Gods follows an invisible man on a road of self-discovery, and it
is the journey and his learning process that are most important. There is a sense of absolution
at the end of the novel, but it is a realization more than it is a change. The realization that
concludes the novel, where the protagonist finds “a higher invisibility” (159) suggests that he
has come to understand that he is invisible, but that his invisibility is beautiful, and worthy of
acknowledgement. That he does not have to find a way to be like “visible” people, but that there
are possibilities for him, the way he is, as well. It is clear that this is, at the end of the novel,
still only an ideal, as the masters of the Invisibles state themselves that “even our way and our
discoveries are still young in all their possibilities. We wake every day in a state of absolute
humility and joyfulness at all that lies possible before us” (148-9). Okri writes about a journey
to a destination that will never be reached, because the destination is not fixed either. With
every development, the dream grows.
Magical realism acknowledges that the current state of the world, of intra-continental
relationships and conceptions of race and “humanist interchangeability”, is far from ideal. If we
take parity, purity, and personhood to be the three key aspects of decolonization, it is clear that
much needs to change to achieve any of the three. Rather than zooming in on the grim reality,
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Ben Okri’s magical realism focuses on optimism, on possibility. His “third space” is a place of
discourse, of collective dreaming. It resembles the space created by the masters of the Invisibles
in their speeches, as it is a realm in which everyone can dwell simultaneously, yet the imagined
visions end suddenly, and a return to “the real world” is inevitable. There is an intermingling
of real and magic in Okri’s fiction, and according to him, it is no different in the world around
us. He states that “[o]ne cannot deny the realism of things, but I think that it’s equally stupid to
deny the magic of things” (“‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting’,” 16), and although in real
life “magic” might not take the shape of unicorns and spirit guides, there is mystery and
possibility and imagination. They all give hope, and hope is crucial for a people looking for
acknowledgement. Perhaps “hope” is no solution, but it is a tool in the quest for purity. The
magical realist style opens up the possibility to incorporate cultures from all over the world and
put them together to create a wonderfully diverse patchwork. Although we should not ignore
that the “magical realist” label is contested because of negative implications and connotations,
Ben Okri uses the style to convey hope, and to distribute dreams for the future. The discourse
surrounding the issue of magical realism and its role in the decolonization is currently still very
much alive, which is why it would be wrong to claim that Okri offers a solution. However, in
Okri’s case, decolonization is not the ultimate destination or solution, rather it is step towards
the illumination of all of humanity.
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Conclusion
Magical realism is contested as a label due to its contextual implications. However, its defining
characteristics can be delineated quite easily. Hybridity is at its core, and the incorporation of
“magical” elements like supernatural creatures, spells, potions, spirits, and transfiguration are
used as a tool to play with notions of rationality and logic. Okri’s magical realism symbolically
represents what life is really like: surprising, unpredictable, and forever in transition. With
magical realism, writers can create a “third space”, a dimension where discourse can freely take
place without being influenced by preconceived notions of race, or implications of nationality
and language. In short, a discourse where prejudice has no place, where it is irrelevant. My aim
has been to show in this dissertation that Ben Okri’s is a valiant attempt to assist the
decolonization of literature. His universalist fiction illustrates what connects all humans, while
simultaneously celebrating diversity. Magical realism as a literary style is inspired by nonEuroamerican traditions, but does not exclude any particular readership from enjoying its
creativity. According to Okri himself, creativity transcends boundaries of race and nationality,
it is a universal freedom and universal right. Yet there is an urgency for the world to
acknowledge Africa, “[t]he world should begin to see the light in Africa, its possibilities, its
beauty, its genius” (ATFND, 137). It is imperative for humanity’s overall progress that Africa
is perceived as equally important, relevant, and worthwhile as the other continents. If Africa
remains sick, its sickness will start to spread like a cancer. Okri recognizes that drastic change
is needed, “[w]e must transform ourselves, or perish” (ATFND, 146).
Astonishing the Gods expresses the urgency by having the protagonist, a youthful
romantic that is looking for his purpose and place in the world, represent a young, hopeful
nation on the path of decolonization, and on the lookout for a unique artistic voice. His journey
of self-discovery is anything but calm. He faces life-threatening challenges, and is offered
minimal support, safe from vague riddles and heavy symbolism in the world around him. His
development alters his perception of his environment, and his re-contextualization of the world
helps him understand his invisibility. The novel shows a working together of polar opposites,
of hard and soft, external and internal, establishment and revolution. As the story progresses,
however, the established notions of what the world should look like start to shift. The preference
of visibility over invisibility disappears. Eventually the protagonist finds, in a state of bliss, that
his validity is not lessened by his lack of visibility. Because of his youthfulness, the protagonist
is able to develop. It suggests and open mind, a willingness to learn and discover, to perceive
each new day as a fresh start. There is magic in his childlike gaze, free from social constructs
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and preconception. A child is never racist, misogynist, or otherwise discriminatory or narrowminded, and Okri urges his readers to find back the child inside of us, so we can once more
value love and education over capitalism and politics. Once we perceive all of the world as a
family, a network of similar souls, we can start to truly care for each other, and share in each
other’s happiness.
Yet Okri knows that this dream is not just magic, it is a fairytale, at least for now. There
is never one level to a problem, and solving an issue that has defined the world as we know it
for decades, perhaps even since the beginning of time, is not as easy as simply telling everyone
to acknowledge the universality of the human experience. o, Okri presents valuable lessons that
can help people understand that they are not hopeless. He suggests that we should not let the
language we speak or the country we “come from” define how we express ourselves creatively.
People should not see themselves as slaves to the system when the system is manmade. English
is a lingua franca that has enabled millions to reach out and share their experiences, and it is
becoming ever clearer that those experiences are not Nigerian, Caucasian, or Catholic, but
Human. Okri reminds us that “[w]e are all of us mixtures” (A Way of Being Free, 100), and we
are all trying to move towards enlightenment.
The “third space”, above anything else, is a space for discourse. It is a space where we
can dwell in great world dreams, and look for hope and strong voices. It is a space to seek
childlike open-mindedness, to learn, to heal. Where we can accept reality and magic at the same
time, and where we can work together, all of humanity, to find parity, purity, and personhood.
The world is in transition, and so is the goal we work towards. The lesson that can be learned
from Astonishing the Gods, is that progress is the only way, and that standing still is simply not
an option. Ben Okri does not offer a solution, a finished product, but needles and thread. Now,
we need to rely on our universal freedom to create, relearning after every stitch how to sew.
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