' Dreams are the currency of Okri's writing, particularly in this first book of poems. AN AFRICAN ELEGY, but also in his books of short stories & Booker prize-winning novel THE FAMISHED ROAD. Okri's dreams are made on the stuff of Africa's colossal economic & political problems, & reading the poems is to experience a constant succession of metaphors of resolution in both senses of the word. Virtually every poem contains an exhortation to climb out of the African miasma, & virtually every poem harvests the dream of itself with an upbeat restorative ending... Authenticity shines out of these poems in the way it does fromthe work of some East European & Russian poets. ' Giles Foden, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT.