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Ben Okri contemplates the meaning of power as he riffs on a Yoruba tale with hints of Jack and the Beanstalk.

In a peaceful land with happy people, there arose a leader who trained the young men of his tribe into an army and took land from a smaller tribe. But it seems the leader does not know an old prophecy about the land. Perhaps he will live to regret his ignorance.

Ben Okri’s works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction for ‘The Famished Road’.

This series of modern fairytales reimagined by leading writers has been specially commissioned to celebrate a major new exhibition at The British Library dedicated to fairy tales, as well as the National Year of Reading.

Reader, Burt Caesar
Producer, Mary Ward-Lowery