The Freedom Artist

By Ben Okri

An NPR Best Book of 2020: “Okri’s tale is especially resonant in our current post-truth environment.” —Booklist (starred review)

In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the Prisoner?

When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization that to find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question.

Karnak’s search leads him into a terrifying world of deception, oppression, and fear at the heart of which lies the prison. Then Karnak discovers that he is not the only one looking for the truth.

The Freedom Artist is an impassioned plea for justice and a penetrating examination of how freedom is threatened in a post-truth society. In Ben Okri's most significant novel since the Booker Prize–winning The Famished Road, he delivers a powerful and haunting call to arms.

“With the stark power of myth, this political allegory evolves into an argument for artistic freedom.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[With] prophetic warnings of apocalypse akin to Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, The Freedom Artist offers a contemplative look at post-truth society.” —Sierra Magazine

“The concise, declarative prose and the parable-like architecture of the stories resemble ancient forms of wisdom literature.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Combines fable, folklore, and mythology with moments of surreal horror to produce a rallying cry against the oppressive institutions that would seek to make knowledge illegal.” —Locus Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akashic Books
• Release date: Feb 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781617757938

Ben Okri

Ben Okri was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw first-hand the consequences of war, and London. He has won many awards over the years, including the Booker Prize for Fiction, and is also an acclaimed essayist, playwright, and poet. In 2019 Astonishing the Gods was named as one of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'.

Book preview

BOOK ONE

1

In a yellow house an old man was being read to by a boy. They took turns reading to one another, and now it was the boy’s turn. The boy’s name was Mirababa. He was reading the tale of the child who climbed a ladder that led to another world where he was given magic gifts by giants.

He stopped reading for a moment.

Is it true, he said, that there is another world beyond ours?

The old man was silent for a long time. Mirababa was used to these silences and had learned to read them. From the old man’s silence this is what the boy read: It was asking questions that got our ancestors into this place. Yet you go on asking them?

This is what the boy sensed all his life whenever he asked a question that was not answered. He came to understand that questions were not answered by answers. They were answered by subtleties of silence.

Mirababa was about to go on reading when to his sur­prise the old man began to speak. He spoke in a rasping but soothing voice. It may have been approaching death that moved the old man to such an uncharacteristic act.

One day, my boy, you must take a leap into the unknown and discover what has been hidden from us . . .

The old man paused. Mirababa heard, in the silence that followed, the beating of an eagle’s wing outside the window. For a moment he heard his own heartbeat. The old man had not answered his question, but had only caused him to listen more intently to the silence.

Mirababa absorbed the silence for a while and then began reading again. He had read no more than a few words when the old man interrupted him.

The only way to go beyond is to go in.

Go in?

Where did the child go, in the story you’ve been reading to me?

He climbed up a ladder to another world.

Where did he go?

Up.

Up is in. The old man paused. Do you remember the tale I read to you about the hero who was trying to get back home?

The one where he blinded a one-eyed giant and listened to the siren’s songs?

That one. Where was he going?

Home.

Going home is going in.

In to where?

The old man paused. This time he shut his eyes as if weary. The boy began listening to the silence, but the old man said: Don’t be like the rest of us. Follow your nature. Follow your questions. Those who try to escape prison end up in another one. Escape that one and they find themselves in another. This world is a succession of prisons and there is no escaping the prison of the world. In our family we have broken out of the prison beyond prison and the prisons beyond that. I’m the last in the line.

The old man paused, eyes still shut. His voice was lower when he began speaking again.

I know that the solution is not out there. For there are only prisons followed by prisons, to the horizon of all things. Astronauts who have been to outer space have not been able to escape the prison of the universe. We have tried every way, except one.

Which one is that, Granddad?

I am an old man listening to what the eagle’s wing says.

What does the eagle’s wing say?

It says it’s time to go home.

But you are home.

I’m an old man who has spent his life in prison and dreams only of freedom.

What is freedom, Granddad?

I dream of the source of the sea. Your voice reminds me of home. The old man’s voice was growing fainter. I won’t live to see the face of the full moon. Listen to me. This is what was handed down to me by the heroes of old. Everything we need to know is concealed in what we most take for granted. Everyone has sought this elixir called freedom. They have sought it for thousands of years. There have been rumors that one unique person found it and passed on the secret in clues hidden in the ancient myths. Apparently two or three other people have found it too, but we don’t know for sure. No one has found it from the ancient times till now.

The old man allowed a longer silence to infiltrate his words.

I have traveled all the routes on the map. I have exhausted the old road. My way has failed, and we are still here, in prison. Now it’s your turn. It’s your time. Find the elixir of free­dom, and bring it back to the people, that we may all be free. If not, we will perish. We will perish of hopelessness.

The old man stopped. He opened his eyes, and was about to resume, when he found that the boy had fallen asleep.

2

In another house, early in the evening, Ama­lan­tis was listening to her lover with a listless air.

His name was Karnak. He was a fine young man with gentle features and doe-like eyes. He was at an in-between stage in his life, awaiting employment. He was speaking of the charm of her cheeks, the bewitchment of her eyes, and the firm grace of her body. He was passionately in love with her. But for some time now she had been feel­ing a strange emptiness. The more people praised her beauty, the emptier she felt.

It had begun one morning long ago when she was staring into a mirror. As she gazed at her face someone in the mirror appeared to wink at her. She became aware that there was someone inside her who wasn’t her. The more she looked the more she felt that someone other than her was trapped behind her face. Who is behind that mask that everyone thinks is me? she wondered. This question was the beginning of her troubles.

She got it into her head that whoever was behind her face was a prisoner. She felt imprisoned within herself. It was a notion that brought panic. She could not share this notion with anyone.

Everybody thought Amalantis beautiful. But the more people praised her beauty, the more she felt like a fraud. This made her silent in the face of adulation, deepening her mystery, increasing the adulation. Often lost in thought, she felt estranged from the truth of life, and began to brood. That was long ago.

When Karnak poured praises on her, she could think of nothing to say except what she should not say.

Your praise makes me ill.

I’m sorry to hear that.

Why don’t we talk about something more intriguing?

Like what?

Like . . . who do you think the prisoner is?

Karnak was startled, as if stung by a snake.

Prisoner? What prisoner?

You know, the graffiti they keep trying to get rid of? The stuff that keeps appearing everywhere?

What’re you talking about?

Who is the prisoner?

Karnak shut the door quickly. We’re not supposed to say that word. It could get us into trouble. We could be put away for it.

Are you afraid of the truth too?

Truth? What truth?

You know everyone’s asking the question.

But they’re not asking it out loud. Don’t say that word again. Don’t say anything.

Amalantis didn’t speak for a while but stared thoughtfully out of the window.

I would like to know, she said eventually, who the pris­oner is.

Why?

At that moment, they heard three knocks at the door. The young lover opened the door and saw three men standing there. They were dressed identically in gray suits and ties. They went over to the girl and marched her out to the road, where a gray van was already waiting.

Amalantis was silent as she was led away. Karnak found himself in the doorway, watching as if in a dream. She was hoisted into the back of the van. Then it pulled away. Not one of the men had spoken a single word.

3

There were many such arrests throughout the land. They took place at all hours of the day and night. People were arrested while they slept, in the middle of their dreams, or while they were at work. Nobody protested. Those who came to do the arresting did not speak. Their presence was enough. Those arrested were taken to unknown places, never heard from again.

A strange silence spread across the land. The streets gradually emptied. Those who were not arrested, but witnessed the arrests of others, went around in a constant state of fear. People spoke less and less to each other. Their conversation became neutral. They stopped looking one another in the eye. No laughter was heard in the streets. A gloomy mood per­vaded the land.

Naturally, the quality of language changed. Certain words became suspicious and vanished from public life. Words like hope, rights, truth. Anyone heard utter­ing those words found empty spaces around them. It wasn’t long before any­one using the word freedom was suspected of harbor­ing dangerous intentions.

The question which appeared on walls did not go away just because the authorities grew more ruthless. If anything, the question and its appearance in public spaces grew more audacious.

On a bright morning the wind would blow square bits of paper among the populace. On these miniature bills was the question: WHO IS THE PRISONER?

Silence had only multiplied the power of the question.

4

There were, in those times, two classes of people. One, the overwhelming majority, were the normal people. They did not speak much. They did their work, fulfilled their obligations, raised their families, read the newspapers, absorbed all they read, watched television, and believed all they saw. They kept their nightmares to themselves. They con­stituted the highest presence in hospital wards and psy­chi­atric clinics. They had, as a running music in their heads, a steady, unchanging drone.

And yet, at night, in room after room, across housing projects or in rich suburbs, screams could be heard coming from their beds. They shouted in their sleep and howled like frightened animals. This could be heard at night all across the land. It became so common that soon it was considered the normal mode of sleep. That is to say, no one noticed it anymore.

5

The second kind of people looked like the first except for one thing. They were more alert. They didn’t sleep much at night. Their eyes had a constant wakefulness. They didn’t read the newspapers, treated television as a daily farce, and believed nothing of what they saw or heard. They were the few.

They drank water, stared at the sky, listened to the wind, and paid attention to everything. They were gener­ally silent. If addressed or asked a question, they shrugged. They spoke gently. They smiled mysteriously, incom­pletely, an inward smile made almost visible.

They worked as little as possible and yet were immen­sely productive. They seemed solitary, but were not lonely. They could often be heard humming a piece of music to them­selves. They ventured no philosophy, and offered no resistance. They seemed absent when present. But they were present when absent.

They did not scream in their sleep and never had night­mares. They were unnoticeable, indistinguishable. But a strange light hovered in the space they had vacated. They were deep breathers and had a curious quality of age­less­ness about their features.

They did not hear an unchanging background drone in their heads. They heard a pure silence, the mildest fragrance of a melody.

More than anything else it was her beauty that frightened him.

How can you be so beautiful and still be human? he asked.

Am I beautiful?

You know you are.

Let me show you what beauty is, she said.

Then she got him to take a long walk with her. It was early in the evening. She took him to the far fields on the edge of the city. Gentle howls were drifting across from the trees.

Wait here, she said.

They stood for ten minutes and nothing happened. Then, just as he was beginning to feel restless, he saw these horses in the field. He didn’t know where they came from. They just seemed to appear. They were huge and their bodies slick and fine. There were black horses and white ones and horses that were almost golden in color. They grazed and played and galloped, their manes blowing in the light wind.

That’s beautiful, she said, after they stared at the horses a long time in silence.

On the way back they passed an old woman in a doorway. She sat in the doorway, looking unhappy and a little lost.

That’s beautiful too, Amalantis said.

That old woman who looked sad?

Yes, she said. That’s one of the most beautiful people I know.

Karnak looked back at the old lady, who was weeping now.

Ama­lantis said: You go on home. I have to help her.

But you don’t even know her.

I do now, she said, and went back to the old lady.

Karnak watched her talking to the old lady for a long time. He waited in the shadow of the building. Then after a while the old lady and Amalantis went into the house. Karnak sat and leaned against the wall and waited. He fell asleep. When he woke up he found Amalantis sitting next to him, watching him with a tender expression in her eyes.

Why didn’t you wake me?

Thank you for waiting for me, she said.

Why didn’t you wake me, though?

Because I kept thinking how beautiful you looked. I wanted to show you what beauty was and didn’t quite know how.

What happened with the old woman?

She just wants to die.

But why? Karnak asked, looking at her.

Amalantis didn’t reply. She merely looked at him as if he should know the answer already.

He didn’t then, and it bewildered him.

6

The old man was found dead on the night of the full moon, sitting upright in his chair, with an open book in his lap. His face was at peace. Those who looked closely saw a faint smile on his lips.

He had bequeathed his earthly possessions to his family, urging them to keep alive the old myths now being forgotten. To the boy, with whom he spent the last months reading, he bequeathed a particular manuscript. It was to be read only by him, when he was ready.

The manuscript was written in the old hand, which few people could read. It was called The Legend of the Prison.

7

The boy did not weep at the old man’s funeral. Nor did any­one else. He was one of the secret heroes of the land. His death was an occasion for celebration, silence, and poetry. The old bards appeared among them. As the body was being transmuted into the golden ash of his final estate, they recited the ancient myths in deep intonations. With music wrung from the lyre and the drum, their voices accom­panied the flight of the old man’s soul to Elysium.

At the appointed time, the old bards came for Mirababa and led him into the forest. This was in accordance with the ancient custom which dictated that with the death of an old mythmaker a new one is initiated. The old man’s death was the beginning of the boy’s life.

That night many in the land noticed the flight of a white eagle. It seemed to fly straight into the unnatural whiteness of the full moon.

8

Karnak had watched helplessly from the door while that flower of the land was taken away. Like a sacrificial lamb, she had gone without a sound of protest. At the door of the van she had turned her head to look back at him. A mysterious smile trembled on her lips. With an inexplicable movement of her head, a lifting of her face, she got into the back of the van and was driven away.

The young lover was rooted to the spot, as if under a spell. He stared at the empty space where he had last seen the strange smile on her face. He stared and saw nothing. He thought nothing.

A numbness spread through him. He simply stared. He did not notice the birds whirling in the air. He did not notice passersby staring at him. Neighbors went past him, said hello, and he did not hear them. They noticed his vacancy.

He stood there for a long time. He didn’t see the light change in the sky. He didn’t see the darkness extend­ing its dominion over the earth. He didn’t hear the sounds of the world altered by the vanishing light.

Then a shout in the street woke him from his stupor. When he looked around he saw, to his amazement, that it was already dark. Feeling stiff from standing too long in one place, he shut the door behind him and set off on the long solitary walk to his home through the darkening streets.

As he walked he heard shouts and howls rising from the houses he passed. He heard them one by one, then in twos, then in confused choruses. Then the cries would fall silent. Then suddenly again they would shatter the silence and he would listen to the howls and screams rising from the many houses, from lonely rooms, from crowded bedrooms.

He was never normally out so late, because of the curfew. He was hearing these shouts and cries for the first time. As he listened to them with fear in his heart he wondered what horror was befalling people while they slept.

The howls were loud and frightening. They broke out in sudden wild crescendos or stretched out in long lonely howls and lamentations. Sometimes there would be an extended tiny female whimper. After a while he began to hurry. He could bear the sounds no

Reviews for The Freedom Artist

[psychomamma · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received an early review copy from Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. This book was not my cup of tea, although I did finish it. The book is basically a fable about society and the ways in which we live unconsciously. I like the idea and the theme, but doing it through a fable just isn't my thing. I didn't and couldn't connect with the characters, and found the tiny short chapters really choppy.

[over.the.edge · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Freedom Artistby Ben Okri2019/2020Akashic Books4.5 / 5.0Thanks to LibraryThing and Akashic Books for sending this ARC.A dystopian novel, set in an un-named city, living in a time where human life and human communication are so censored, societies mindset is that everyone must say they are happy. Complacent and happy, happiness as defined by The Hierarchy. Anyone found not enforcing the forced happiness could be instantly killed. Books have become illegal.The premise is absolutely amazing, mind-bending and incredibly thought provoking. To evoke change, we must start over. We cannot afford to be complacent. We must start asking questions, like, Who Is Really The Prisoner? Upwake! Upstart!Suggested reading.

[banjo123 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This Early Reviewers book is very allegorical and metaphorical, with limited plot. The book centers on the idea that the whole world is a prison, and that people don't exactly know that they are imprisoned. I found it thought-provoking, but not a quick read. It was full of interesting sentences and images:"Not long afterward, on a cold and silent night, a cry was heard. Someone had escaped the prison of the world. The cry announced the extraordinary life beyond. This was not a cry of lamentation, but of exultation. It was heard on the edge of the desert. It was heard once and never again. That one cry was enough to infect the world with unease."

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Freedom Artist from Ben Okri is an interesting hybrid of an allegorical novel with parallel stories told with the flow and rhythm of free verse. This is a work that will likely hit or miss with most of the reading public.Like the Wall Street Journal comments, this has a strong link to Plato's Allegory of the Cave as well as a vein of dystopian fiction including The Handmaid's Tale and Fahrenheit 451. Anyone familiar with these will easily see the similarities. The issue will be how well Okri succeeds in his addition to the literature.The writing is, as I have come to expect, quite good. There is a spareness that both propels the narrative while also highlighting the sense of helplessness in the face of an evil regime (similar to the US under the current regime but not nearly so helpless). There is what seems like a lot of repetition but it didn't bother me as much as it did some other readers. I think because I expect repetition in both allegorical work and free verse, so I took it in stride. That said, it is not what we have become accustomed to and can put some readers off.Because of the nature of the work and what Okri is doing politically and socially with the work, characters are going to be less fleshed out since they are there to promote thought and analysis about the big picture rather than simply about the plight of one or two people in that picture. Again, off putting to some but part of the style Okri chose.Of the stories, I personally found more enjoyment, such as it is, in the more abstract story, the one that might, to some eyes, resemble magical realism.This is a quick read (though, like with many such books, I recommend slowing down) and I do believe that it can speak volumes even to those who may not care for the work as a novel. This is not a long slog that you might hope has an important message, this can be a quick think piece. Bracket whatever you have come to expect and even desire in a novel and give this one a chance on its own terms, it will be well worth the effort. Having said that, if you know you don't like works that don't conform to whatever your usual reads do, then maybe this won't appeal to you regardless of the message. Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

[dianeham · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I agree with many other reviewers- loved it in the beginning but then I lost interest. It just didn't hold my attention. I really wanted to like this book but not so much.