Tiger Work is a collection of timely and often poignant short stories, essays and poetry about Climate Change by Nigerian-born Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri that constitute a powerful and very personal appeal for change. He offers what he feels are the reasons that too little is being done, and makes positive suggestions.

He states: “Our capacity for denial is stronger than our capacity for belief. We find it easier to not face the truth. We go on living our ordinary lives while refusing to believe the overwhelming evidence that our way of life is destroying us. A prisoner of the past, we go on doing things which we know are killing us. Worse, we believe that the inevitable conclusion of all our deeds will not come to pass. We think that somehow, at the last minute, there will be a miracle, a magical solution. We possibly even hope that factors in nature we hadn’t considered will somehow wipe clean the slate of our environmental crimes.”

One of the short stories, “And Peace Shall Return” is a post-apocalyptic tale that consists of scraps of documents found by those visiting Earth some twenty thousand years after the planet went silent: “scattered notes and half-worked stories left behind by the last human beings in the very twilight of their history.”, offering a retrospective of earths fate. It includes “The real menace were the politicians smoothly denying there was anything to fear. But we were the worst menace of all. The way we kept trying to live normally” which may resonate with many.
Another, “After the End” offers a view of what seems like a pre apocalyptic dystopia.
The poetry is persuasive and thought-provoking:
“What can one say to those
Who either don’t want to
Hear, or have heard enough?
What can one say
That doesn’t paralyse some
With the sheer scale
Of the problem?
Fear Doesn’t work.
And guilt doesn’t work.
So I thought that maybe
Love could shift our vision”
And
“In the Tao Te Ching
There’s a light-crammed
Passage which says
That the sage loves
The world as they love their body.
If the earth were our body
Would we do half the things
To it that we’re doing?
Take a nuclear blast
To the kidney
Smash the heart
With metal spikes
Frack the intestines
Mine the brain“ are examples

Okri prefaces it all with the request to “read slowly”, and these analytical and inspirational pieces will definitely have their best impact if consumed in small doses. The reader’s frame is mind will also be important to how well the message is received. Will his message reach those who need to hear it? Or is Okri preaching to the converted? Topical and relevant.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Head of Zeus