Journeys of Artistic and Social Exploration: Katabatic Influences in Ben Okri’s Fiction

I.

The Nigerian writer Ben Okri has aroused the interest of critics in recent decades, particularly since obtaining the Booker Prize in 1991 for his novel The Famished Road. One of the reasons for this interest is the combination of elements from African mythical traditions (especially Yoruba culture) with genres and motifs from the mythical and literary traditions prevailing in the West. In his literary debut Flowers and Shadows, Okri already used one of the classic genres of Western literature, the Bildungsroman, to narrate the experiences of his young protagonist as he struggles to deal both with parental influences and the corruption prevailing in postcolonial Nigeria. Okri took his inspiration from this literary genre once again, albeit in an unorthodox manner, in The Famished Road, in which he narrates the vicissitudes of Azaro, an abiku, who has the ability to travel between the material world and the spirit world.¹ His rewriting of Western literary genres is also evident in his second published novel, The Landscapes Within, an adaptation of the Künstlerroman, which the Nigerian author subsequently reworked in Dangerous Love. In more recent works such as Starbook, Okri once again demonstrates his fondness for the Künstlerroman, also deviating markedly from some of its fundamental principles.²

Okri’s interest in Western literary and mythical traditions can be perceived as well in his use of the classical motif of the katabasis, the descent into Hades. In several of Okri’s works, the main characters explore an infernal landscape tinged by surrealism as they undertake a metaphorical journey into the underworld. Such is the case in a number of stories published in Okri’s first two anthologies, including “Worlds that Flourish,” “What the Tapster Saw,” and “Converging City”; and also, to a lesser extent, “In the Shadow of War” and “In the City of Red Dust.” Although these narratives show the influence of the katabasis, they are also very clearly indebted to Yoruba mythology and literature, particularly to the work of Amos Tutuola. A greater influence from the katabatic genre can be perceived in one particular short story, “When the Lights Return,” which can be read as a rewriting of the classical myth of Orpheus, as well as in Okri’s novel In Arcadia, which has been generally interpreted in terms of its utopian influence, but which is also structured, in thematic and narrative terms, in dialogue with the katabasis.

Okri’s narrative has been discussed from different critical perspectives. Many scholars focus on the use of intertextuality in the abiku trilogy and the short stories published during the late 1980s and 1990s, as they explore the connection between Okri’s narrative technique and magical realism. This is the case of Brenda Cooper’s classical study on magical realism in West African fiction, or more recently the study conducted by Kim Anderson Sasser on magical realism and cosmopolitanism, which also focuses on The Famished Road. Much more limited attention has been given to Okri’s twenty-first-century literary production, in which the African writer explores a variety of genres, including poetry and essay-writing, and where he carries fantasy and narrative experimentation to new heights. Indeed Okri has walked away from the paths of naturalism as he has become more experienced. Yet, it would be a mistake to approach Okri’s oeuvre as if there existed a complete discontinuity between early and late stages in his career. Topics like the social function of the artist and the multifarious nature of reality inform Okri’s whole work, together with the blending of African and Western cultural traditions and the attempt to revisit and rewrite classical literary genres. The study of Okri’s narrative within the framework of the katabasis enables us to identify some of these common features from a new perspective, which has only been partially discussed by scholars. Critics like Mariaconcetta Constantini and Ato Quayson have referred to the presence of Orphic elements in “When the Lights Return.” Yet there is not, as far as I know, a detailed study on how these Orphic...