Ben Okri at the Edinburgh International Book Festival

‘Storytellers sometimes see things before they have been experienced.’ This, from Ben Okri’s new chillingly dystopic novel The Freedom Artist, is a stark warning to readers. His world of truths eroded, of people shambling blindly towards calamity, is eerily recognisable – but hope lingers. The Booker Prize winner is on savage form in this politically-charged Borgesian parable. In this event filmed live at the 2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival he asks: what will wake us before disaster strikes?

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Friday 13 December

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