'All things are linked’ : magical realism in Ben Okri’s 'Abiku trilogy'

Abstract

This work follows the definition of Brenda Cooper in her work 'Magical Realism in West African Fiction : Seeing with a Third Eye', in that magical realism unites the paradoxes of opposites that are experienced by the magical realist due to his hybridisation that emerges from a postcolonial framework. These paradoxes are encapsulated in the motif of the abiku, the spirit-child that straddles both realms of the real and that of the spirits, moving to and fro between the boundaries of Time, as the past and the future merge into the spirit-child's present.

In the chapters inside this work, the fluctuating boundaries between Time and Space viewed extensively to see how the boundaries are distorted, destroyed or changed inside the trilogy of Ben Okri. This is to show how that all things are linked, and it takes a magical realist approach to see the paradoxes of opposites that can be found all around us.