20 Questions With Sir Ben Okri

Knighted in the King's Birthday Honours, Sir Ben Okri is one of Britain's most significant writers. Influenced by his experiences of both his adopted home and his native Nigeria, his novels span contrasting cultures and traditions. Awarded the Booker Prize in 1991 for The Famished Road, Okri has gone on to establish himself as an author of international repute. Here he discusses his childhood, the Nigerian civil war, a period of homelessness in England, his journey into writing, his knighthood, his championship of the environment and his horror at the climate crisis, his passions outside work, and the changing face of the UK. His latest book, Tiger Work, mixes fiction, essay and poetry in its appeal for change in the face of global warming.