"The Secret Source"

Submitted by LT_Sargent on Sun, 10/02/2022 - 10:53
Title"The Secret Source"
Year for Search2022
AuthorsOkri, Ben(b. 1959)
Secondary TitleThe New Yorker
Volume / Edition98.29
Pagination58-62
Date PublishedSeptember 19, 2022
ISSN Number0028-792X
KeywordsEnglish author, Male author, Nigerian author
Annotation

The story is set in the future in an unidentified country with a severe water shortage and rationing. What is available appears to cause people to become “docile, amenable to all suggestions from the government” (89), and the protagonists search for answers. The author discusses the story in an interview with Deborah Treisman at https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/ben-okri-09-19-22.

Additional Publishers

The author reading the story can be found at https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice/ben-okri-reads-the-secret-source.

URLhttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/09/19/the-secret-source
Info Notes

The author discusses the story in an interview with Deborah Treisman at https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/ben-okri-09-19-22.
Illustration

Illus. Holly Warburton
Author Note

The author was born in Nigeria, lived and attended school in England from childhood to early teens, lived in Nigeria from then to 1978, when he returned to England, where he lives. He won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1991 for The Famished Road.
Full Text

2022 Okri, Ben (b. 1959). “The Secret Source.” Illus. Holly Warburton. The New Yorker 98.29 (September 19, 2022): 58-62. Online at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/09/19/the-secret-source. The author reading the story can be found at https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice/ben-okri-reads-the-secret-source.

The story is set in the future in an unidentified country with a severe water shortage and rationing. What is available appears to cause people to become “docile, amenable to all suggestions from the government” (89), and the protagonists search for answers. The author discusses the story in an interview with Deborah Treisman at https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/ben-okri-09-19-22. The author was born in Nigeria, lived and attended school in England from childhood to early teens, lived in Nigeria from then to 1978, when he returned to England, where he lives. He won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1991 for The Famished Road.