Okri is a master in knowing what is better left unsaid. He trusts the minds and imaginations of his readers to fill in the absences. Okri does not name the boy or his feelings in the tense moment before he and the world around him are ripped to shreds. He does not describe the rubble and the shock of this calamity. Yet the reader can feel it all poignantly ... Though Okri’s stories rarely surpass a handful of pages, their brevity does not make Prayer for the Living a quick read. I found myself compelled to go over the same pages and stories multiple times. Within the shortness of Okri’s texts lie their multitudes; each word chosen is vital. While the text is often enigmatic, it leaves just enough room for a reader to untangle the webs Okri weaves. Okri’s style often drifts toward the poetic. He repeats structures and themes, creating cohesion and reinforcing important messages across his stories which can seem disparate at face value but are often intertwined in meaning ... By the time readers have settled into one story, the next one has already begun; however, these transitions never feel jarring. I found myself effortlessly swept up in Okri’s different worlds ... My heart sped up, my stomach dropped, I gasped, I laughed, I closed the book and gazed out the window for a few minutes then came back and opened the book again.

Booker-winner Okri delivers a sprawling collection that spans continents, centuries, and the border between the real and the supernatural. Told in alternating flash fictions and longer works, the stories all evoke the cadence of origin myths and oral history ... These visceral, brief depictions of violence and fear are the most powerful of the collection. This is as an essential reminder of the timeless and vital nature of storytelling.

Ben Okri has a fantastic imagination. Reading the collection is similar to turning a glass snow globe and watching several dozen flakes each descending differently. He’s not creating magical realism as much as redefining it. He plays with reality, pushing the boundaries of certitude as far as they will stretch ... Okri is a master of minimalistic metaphor ... Okri’s passion for the written word had my heart soaring. Prayer for the Living covers so many current issues in such a potent manner. Ben Okri made me laugh. He made me cry. He made me think.

... read slowly. This is sage advice—if you pick through his words too quickly, you might miss a fateful turn within a story or a sentence that will steal your soul away. Reading slowly in the case of Prayer for the Living means savoring each word, sentence, and story, even if it’s unclear what direction they are aiming for. But that’s the adventure and thrill of Okri’s collection: you never know which shock­ing end or mystical place he will take you to next. Within each story, Okri takes us on a journey across worlds that are only accessible in dreams and moments before death . Prayer for the Living does not fit neatly under a particular genre, even under the wider speculative genre. It’s certainly not magical realism, nor is it some other easy, two-word summary. Moreover, it is a book whose success is not measured by pacing. Rather, its success should be measured by how well it can evoke deep, soul-gripping unsettlement and disillusionment, and how long that feeling lasts after the final page ... Regardless of where Ben Okri takes his readers, he does so with a steady, confident hand, even in ambiguity.

A career-spanning story collection from the Booker Prize–winning Nigerian writer that navigates the blurry line between dream and reality .. Okri’s stories are so concerned with myth and folklore, and so comfortable in the style of those genres, that his best ones sometimes feel as if written on parchment or chiseled in granite ... Okri often plays with form, as in two stories written in a flash-fiction style he calls 'stoku,' a portmanteau of story and haiku. But throughout, Okri skillfully embeds abstract ideas in concrete, engaging storytelling. A diverse yet consistent collection, mind-bending and provocative in a host of styles and milieus.