The Age of Magic - by Ben Okri (Paperback)

About the Book

"In this enchanting novel from the Booker Prize-winning author, a group of world-weary travelers discover the meaning of life in a mysterious Swiss mountain village. The Age of Magic has begun. Unveil your eyes. Eight weary filmmakers, traveling from Paris to Basel, arrive at a small Swiss hotel on the shores of a luminous lake. Above them, strewn with lights that twinkle in the darkness, looms the towering Rigi mountain. Over the course of three days and two nights, the travelers will find themselves drawn into the mystery of the mountain reflected in the lake. One by one, they will be disturbed, enlightened, and transformed, each in a different way."--

Book Synopsis

In this enchanting novel from the Booker Prize-winning author, a group of world-weary travelers discover the meaning of life in a mysterious Swiss mountain village.

The Age of Magic has begun. Unveil your eyes.

Eight weary filmmakers, traveling from Paris to Basel, arrive at a small Swiss hotel on the shores of a luminous lake. Above them, strewn with lights that twinkle in the darkness, looms the towering Rigi mountain. Over the course of three days and two nights, the travelers will find themselves drawn into the mystery of the mountain reflected in the lake. One by one, they will be disturbed, enlightened, and transformed, each in a different way. An intoxicating and dreamlike tale unfolds. Allow yourself to be transformed. Having shown a different way of seeing the world, Ben Okri now offers a different way of reading.

Review Quotes

Praise for Ben Okri:

"[Okri's] writing takes on the great riddles of existence--freedom and consciousness, truth and illusion, suffering and transcendence--spinning them into shimmering, allegorical texts...at a time of deep reckoning and crisis...his work feel[s] all the more prescient." --New York Times

"Fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace, and uncommon power." --Marlon James

"Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three--literature, culture, and vision--are profoundly interwoven." --Ali Smith

About the Author

Ben Okri is a playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, anthologist, and aphorist. He has also written film scripts. His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction. His books include the eco-fable Every Leaf a Hallelujah, the play Changing Destiny, the genre-bending climate fiction Tiger Work, the poetry collections A Fire in My Head and Mental Fight, and the novels Astonishing the Gods, The Last Gift of the Master Artists, and Dangerous Love. In 2023 he received a knighthood for services to literature.