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Chigozie Obioma

Biography

Chigozie Obioma

Chigozie Obioma was born in 1986 in Akure, Nigeria. His short stories have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review and New Madrid. His first novel, THE FISHERMEN, won the 2016 NAACP Image Award and was a Man Booker Prize finalist. He has lived in Nigeria, Cyprus and Turkey, and currently resides in the United States, where he teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Chigozie Obioma

Books by Chigozie Obioma

by Chigozie Obioma - Fiction

Set on the outskirts of Umuahia, Nigeria, and narrated by a chi, or guardian spirit, AN ORCHESTRA OF MINORITIES tells the story of Chinonso, a young poultry farmer who falls in love with a woman named Ndali after saving her life. But when Ndali’s wealthy family objects to the union because he is uneducated, Chinonso sells most of his possessions to attend a college in Cyprus. Upon his arrival, he discovers that he has been utterly duped by the young Nigerian who has made the arrangements. Penniless, homeless and furious at a world that continues to relegate him to the sidelines, Chinonso gets further away from his dream, from Ndali and the farm he called home.

by Chigozie Obioma - Fiction

Told by nine-year-old Benjamin, the youngest of four brothers, THE FISHERMEN is the Cain and Abel-esque story of a childhood in Nigeria. When their father has to travel to a distant city for work, the brothers take advantage of his absence to skip school and go fishing. At the forbidden nearby river, they meet a madman who persuades the oldest of the boys that he is destined to be killed by one of his siblings. What happens next is an almost mythic event whose impact --- both tragic and redemptive --- will transcend the lives and imaginations of the book's characters and readers.