SOURCE: "Ben Okri's The Landscapes Within: A Metaphor for Personal and National Development," in World Literature Written in English, Vol. 28, No. 2, Autumn, 1988, pp. 203-10.

In the following essay, Porter analyzes how Okri uses elements of the künstlerroman in The Landscapes Within to discuss problems of contemporary Nigeria. He also briefly compares the story line of The Landscapes Within to other novels within this genre, notably James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968).

Although African writers have often treated the subject of national and cultural development in their writings, very few of these authors have focused specifically on the role or contribution of the young artist towards national development in modern African society. My aim in this essay is to demonstrate how Ben Okri, a promising young novelist from Nigeria, successfully uses the literary...