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Chigozie Obioma

Biography

Chigozie Obioma

Chigozie Obioma was born in Akure, Nigeria. His novels THE FISHERMEN and AN ORCHESTRA OF MINORITIES were both finalists for the Booker Prize. They have won the inaugural FT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices Award for Fiction, the NAACP Image Award, and the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction and have been nominated for many others. Together, they have been translated into 30 languages. He was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and divides his time between the United States and Nigeria.

Chigozie Obioma

Books by Chigozie Obioma

The Road to the Country
by Chigozie Obioma - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, THE ROAD TO THE COUNTRY is the epic story of a shy, bookish student haunted by long-held guilt who must go to war to free himself. When his younger brother disappears as the country explodes in civil war, Kunle must set out on an impossible rescue mission. Kunle’s search for his brother becomes a journey of atonement that will see him conscripted into the breakaway Biafran army and forced to fight a war he hardly understands, all while navigating the prophecies of a local Seer, he who marks Kunle as an abami eda --- one who will die and return to life.

An Orchestra of Minorities
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.

The Fishermen
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.