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This is exactly why Ben Okri’s “The Famished Road” is stunning.

Sir Tom Stoppard, Dame Jacqueline Wilson, Sir Ben Okri and Julia Donaldson put their calligraphy skills to the test making the latest works.

Although his collection is diverse—it includes poems about plastic, parables about water, a letter to Earth and vignettes describing our civilization in its waning days—Okri's simple, stirring language runs through it like a current, delivering unexpected shocks of both pain and inspiration.

Rejecting the term “climate emergency” in favor of “humanity emergency,” Ben Okri puts forth an indictment of humanity that is counterbalanced only by his belief in its capacity for evolution.

Former hostage Terry Waite is given a knighthood, alongside novelists Ben Okri, and Martin Amis, who died in May.