Prayer for the living : stories

Topical and timely, Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri's new collection of short stories blur parallel realities and walk the line between darkness and magic.

Is what you see all there is? Look again. Playful, frightening, even shocking – the stories in this collection blur the lines between illusion and reality.

This is a writer at the height of his power, making the reader think, making them laugh, and sometimes making them want to look away while holding their gaze.

Stories here are set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, in a printer's shop in Spain.

The characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a man in a cave, a man in a mirror, two little boys, a prison door, and the author himself.

There are twenty-three stories in all. Each one will make you wonder if what you see in the world is all there is...