Author(s): Ben Okri

Fantasy

'We are listeners at the oracle. Those who truly hear are touched and changed.' At one level, "Starbook" tells the delicate story of a prince and a maiden who are both tested by trials in a mythical land where art, initiation and dynamic stillness are supremely important. At another level, this rich and stimulating novel opens up the nature of reality, where the essence of life is revealed, and the source of enchantment can be ours - where beauty, regeneration and fulfilment are perhaps possible. A dazzling achievement of the imagination, and a profound work of literature of the kind that won Ben Okri the Booker Prize for "The Famished Road", his new novel is a pleasure to read, with an unforgettable radiance of its own. For, no matter where we live and who we think we are, we all have access to the oracle, and a vision of life far greater than ourselves, which comes from 'the book of life among the stars'.