ABSTRACT
The style of Ayi Kwei Armah’s Osiris Rising intermittently takes on the tenor of the classic utopia and the aims of the novel’s Ankh Society – reuniting the continent by suturing the fracture of the colonial borders by means of a repatriated Kemetic history – can certainly be seen in terms of a utopian project. Scholars have occasionally lumped Ben Okri’s work under the umbrella of the utopian project due to its optimistic mysticism and transcendentalism. Okri’s Astonishing the Gods, like most utopias through the end of the nineteenth century, consists of a framing narrative initiating a physical journey to a locus of spiritual/social perfection, often located on an island or other isolated geographical space, followed by a guided initiation into the inner sanctum of the new society. The arcadia, the ‘dream of city dwellers’ occupies the second of Okri’s potential sites of hope. Arcadia – as a word – suits Okri’s general purposes better than utopia.
