In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.

In that land of beginnings spirits mingled with the unborn. We could assume numerous forms. Many of us were birds. We knew no boundaries. There was much feasting, playing, and sorrowing. We feasted much because of the beautiful terrors of eternity. We played much because we were free. And we sorrowed much because there were always those amongst us who had just returned from the world of the Living. They had returned inconsolable for all the love they had left behind, all the suffering they hadn't redeemed, all that they hadn't understood, and for all that they and barely begun to learn before they were drawn back to the land of origins.

Basic set-up:

The protagonist and narrator of Okri's novel is a spirit child who can move between the world of the dead and the world of the living. Here he's introducing us to both worlds.

Okri's The Famished Road is full of references to mythology, as we can see in the very first couple of sentences of the novel: "In the beginning there was a river. And the river became a road and branched out to the whole world." We're talking about the beginning of the world here. All cultures and religions have an origin myth, and here we see Okri drawing specifically on the myths of his native Yoruba culture, which is found in Nigeria.

But there are plenty of other references to mythology in this passage. The narrator talks about the "spirits [that] mingled with the unborn." In fact, the narrator of this novel is an abiku child, which in Yoruba mythology is a child who dies at a young age and can move back and forth between the real and the spirit worlds.

These "unborn" children can take on many forms, including those of birds. They're moving between the "world of the Living" and the spirit world. The "river" at the beginning of time turns into a "road." This shifting back and forth between the fantastic and the mundane is, of course, a hallmark of Magic Realism.

This references a lot of Yoruba mythology, but it's also told in a style that evokes myth.

"In the beginning," for example, reminds us not only of origin myths but also of the Bible's famous statement about the creation of the world: "In the beginning was the Word." So Okri is setting up the opening of his book as myth not only in content, but also in terms of style. It's a signal to us readers that we're meant to read this novel on several levels, and to accept the fantastic with the realistic.