Ben Okri was born on Sunday, March 15, 1959, in Minna, Nigeria, just sixteen months before the country gained its independence from the United Kingdom. Okri was born to Silver Oghenegueke Loloje Okri, an Urhobo man from Warri on the Niger delta, and to his Ibo wife, Grace. Okri spent his early life in Peckham, England, in the borough of Southwark and was one of four siblings, three boys and one girl. At the age of six, Okri returned to Nigeria, a country marked by military coups d'etat and ultimately a three-year civil war. Okri remained in Nigeria until 1978, when his failure to gain entry into the universities' science programs prompted him to return to London with the manuscript of his first novel in hand. In England, Okri attended the University of Essex while successfully publishing his first and second novels, Flowers and Shadows (1979) and The Landscapes Within...