Madame Sosostris & the Festival for the Broken-Hearted
by Ben Okri
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Pub Date 6 Mar 2025 | Archive Date 6 Mar 2025
Head of Zeus | Apollo
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Description
What do you do when your heart has been made a wasteland by love?
Viv, who’s in the House of Lords, had the idea for the festival on the twentieth anniversary of the day her first husband left her. Six months later, crowds descend on the grounds of a dreamlike chateau in the South of France, avidly awaiting the experience of a lifetime, Viv’s inaugural Festival for the Broken-Hearted.
Everyone is in fancy dress. No one knows who anyone is. They wander the beautiful woods with just one night to change everything. And to crown it all, a very special guest is expected: world-renowned clairvoyant and fortune-teller Madame Sosostris, known as the wisest woman in Europe, and not seen since the pages of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. She will attend for one night only.
But will she actually appear at all, or will Viv’s carefully orchestrated festival fall to pieces? Will Viv and her husband make it through the night? Will anyone else?
Part vision, part mystery, this story of a midsummer night’s madness is also an homage to Eliot's famous poem, in Ben Okri’s inimitable style, as alive with echoes and reverberations as the enchanted forest itself. Think Ingmar Bergman meets William Shakespeare, with a dash of Mozart.
Hearts will be healed, and hearts broken, but nobody will leave this festival exactly as they arrived.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781035910755 |
| PRICE | £14.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 208 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Stephen R, Educator
‘In our world, we treat the personality as the person. We don’t distinguish the person from the personality they project. Public life is founded on this.’
"‘If there’s anything people like more than having their fortunes read, it’s having their pasts abolished.’
. From the Famished Road trilogy to more recently The Last Gift of the Master Artists, Ben Okri has written some incredible novels-searching, profound and full of reflection.
Madame Sosostris & the Festival for the Broken-Hearted is a curiosity of a book- two couples with fractured marriages; Viv and Alan; Beatrice and Stephen- living comfortable and privileged lives- but not happy. Following an encounter with the mysterious Madame Sosostris , Viv sets out to create a festival for those spurned in love in a mysterious forest in the south of France - it is to feature a masked ball.
Much of the novel focuses on the conversations between the couples as they reflect of successes, failures, personal desires and frustrations and eaves drops into dialogues and thoughts of those attending the festival and their reasons to meet the elusive fortuneteller.
This is a modern adult fairytale- full of mysticism, metaphors and magic. It is an exploration of identity and personality - private and public ; societal expectations of the wealthy and privileged and how this is often a mirage ;shielding true authenticity
It is hard to classify this short novel but Mr Okri certainly knows how to make the reader ponder what constitutes reality, the true face of individuals and especially what does it mean to love and truly be loved - can we ever know?
Hard to categorise and how readers might respond
Katy W, Reviewer
A fable drenched in the absurd, the spiritual and pure magic. This seemed like it was really fun to write. It was lots of fun to read. A Shakespearean, Midsummer Night's Dream plot is woven into T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland as Madame Sosostris, the wisest woman in Europe, promises to attend a festival for the broken hearted in a magical wood in rural France. Masks and disguises, spells and songs, the dead and the living all mingle in this riot of a tale. Absolutely glorious mythmaking.
