Product Description

With the simplicity and innocence of Narayan or Seth, he tells the story of a young man, Omovo, an office-worker and artist who lives at home with his father and his father's second wife. In the communal world of the compound in which he lives, Omovo has many friends and some enemies, but most important of all there is Ifeyiwa, a beautiful young married woman whom he loves with an almost hopeless passion - not because she doesn't return his love, but because they can never be together. Ben Okri builds a vivid picture of Nigerian life: of the compound with its complete lack of privacy, the gossip, the good times, the street life, the complex nature of family relationships and the kindness and treachery of friends. Overshadowing everything, is the image of a nation struggling to come to terms with the atrocity of the recent civil war, the echoes of which presage the story's tragic

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #695396 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 399 pages

About the Author
Ben Okri was born in Nigeria and now lives in London. He has published fiction (short stories and novels), poetry and essays. He has won numerous prizes for his work.

Customer Reviews

moving, disturbing and distinguished.
This is without a doubt one of the best novels that I have read this summer. It is the story of an impossible yet fierce love between an aspiring painter named Omovo and his love Ifeyiwa who is married to another man for whom she has no affection. The book supplies so many emotions that at times it is difficult to know what to feel, be it anger, pain, happiness or simple bewilderment. Omovo moves through his world haphazardly caring for only two things within it; his painting and Ifeyiwa, to each of which he ascribes fantastic and as the title suggests dangerous love. In a place and a situation where romanticism is very often forgotten in preference for the necessities of life, one of which is very likely to be a numbing of feelings, Omovo is a unique individual and his love for Ifeyiwa although not the only adulterous affair mentioned is clearly unique also. Not only is his love dangerous but so is his whole life exemplified by the seizure of his one displayed painting by the police for a reason that he cannot understand. Not only is Omovo indecipherably intense to us but he is so to himself as well and that is just one of the many complexities that make this novel outstanding. The book is yet another masterpiece from Okri.