Fiona at FMCM, has been handling the publicity for this title and we set a press date of 26 September. An interview in the INDEPENDENT ran on 5 Septemberand Ben did THE READERS AND WRITERS ROADSHOW (BBC4) on 24 October. He was interviewed on RATTLEBAG (RTE) the week of 28 October and the BBC WORLD SERVICEBOOK CLUB are interviewing Ben about Famished Road, which will run the week of 23-26 December He is also being interviewed for THIRD WAY magazine. Ben did a wonderful event at the Cheltenham Festival on 18 October. Reviews are coming in thick and fast - it was' Book of the Week' in THE TIMES on 28 September , Bel Mooney giving it an excellent review. There have also been reviews inTHE SUNDAY TIMES by Hugo Barnacle THE GUARDIAN, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH and THEINDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY "Ultimately, this is a voyage of self-discovery . . . giving Okri theopportunity to meditate on subjects from crime and homelessness to thelanguage of butterflies, as he contrasts his hellish, apocalyptic visionof the state we're in with a lost pastoral idyll."Hephzibah Anderson, THE DAILY MAIL "As in all of his books, you cannot fault Okri for confronting thebigissues and asking questions of our secular age that few of hiscontemporaries have the innocence or bravery to attempt"Tim Adams, OBSERVER 'There is a love of contradiction in Okri, which sometimes produces great sentences (the stuffiness of cheap Parisian hotel rooms 'invited the occupants to evict themselves from life''.Amy Mathleson, THE SCOTSMAN 'Mixing a densely metaphysicalapproach with a delightfully lyrical style, Okri here creates a truly fascinating work, and a hugely ambitious one too.'Doug Johnston, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY'Capable of moments of beauty and lush description, he can still be arresting and evocative. This novel does contain moments of hallucinatory insight and, in the latter stages, acts as a fine artistic response to a great painting.'Stephen Abell, THE TLS 'Okri's new novel, IN ARCADIA...... is a kind of literary CELESTINE PROPHECY - a riddling quest for enlightenment, via the secret messages the universe drops before us.'Judith Palmer, THE INDEPENDENT 'The writing has a certain magisterial quality.'William Skidelsky, THE NEW STATESMAN'He (Okri) has wisdom to impart, and his characters represent the points of view required to get this message across.'Lottie Moggach, TIME OUT 'One thinks of the dead and unique WG Sebald, for example and of Ben Okri, writers of similar strange ambitions...... They're similar but they're also opposites: where Sebald's charm and magic is deliberately faded, and wilted and forlorn, Okri is bright, and striking and hungry.'Ian Samson, THE IRISH TIMES ART QUARTE
