LiteratureXchange Festival Aarhus (Denmark 2024) Photo Hreinn Gudlaugsson
Chigozie Obioma (born 1986) is a Nigerian writer who wrote the novels The Fishermen (2015)[2] and An Orchestra of Minorities (2019),[3] both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize in their respective years of publication.[4][5] His work has been translated into more than 30 languages.[6] His third novel, The Road to the Country, was published in 2024, and was described by The Guardian as having "given a voice" to the victims of the Nigerian civil war.[7]
As of 2021[update], Obioma was James E. Ryan Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.[8] He now teaches at the University of Georgia as the Helen S. Lanier Distinguished Professor.
Early life and influences
Of Igbo descent, Obioma was born in 1986[1] into a family of 12 children — seven brothers and four sisters – in Akure, in the south-western part of Nigeria,[9] where he grew up speaking Yoruba, Igbo, and English.[10]
In January 2023, Obioma announced the Oxbelly Writers Retreat, a writers retreat that he had founded with the vision of bringing writers from all over the world, no matter their means or origin, to come together, share and put their ideas together.[16]
It won several awards: the FT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices Award, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author, the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction,[30] the Nebraska Book Award For Fiction 2016, and the Earphones Award for the Audiobook of The Fishermen.[31]
Obioma states that, in addition to being a tribute to his siblings, the novel aims to "build a portrait of Nigeria at a very seminal moment in its history (the annulled presidential elections of 1993), and by so doing deconstruct and illuminate the ideological potholes that still impede the nation's progress even today."[11] He began writing the novel in 2009, while living in Cyprus to complete his bachelor's degree at Cyprus International University,[32] where he graduated at the top of his class.[33] The idea for the novel came when he reflected on his father's joy at the growing bond between his two eldest brothers who, as children, had maintained a strong rivalry that would sometimes culminate in fistfights. As Obioma began pondering what was the worst that could have happened at that time, the image of the Agwu family came to him. Then he created Abulu as the facilitator of conflict between the brothers. On a larger thematic note, Obioma wanted the novel to comment on the socio-political situation of Nigeria: the prophesying madman here being the British, and the recipients of the vision being the people of Nigeria (three major tribes cohabiting to form a nation).[9]
New Perspectives theatre company presented a stage adaptation of The Fishermen adapted by Gbolahan Obisesan from 2018.[34]
An Orchestra of Minorities
Little, Brown and Company published Obioma's highly anticipated second novel, An Orchestra of Minorities, in January 2019.[35] Drawing on Obioma's own experiences studying abroad in northern Cyprus, An Orchestra of Minorities tells the story of a Nigerian poultry farmer who, determined to make money to prove himself worthy of the woman he loves, travels to northern Cyprus, where he is confronted by racism and scammed by corrupt middlemen.[36][37] Obioma was particularly inspired by his friend Jay, who was found dead at the bottom of a lift shaft in Cyprus after having his tuition funds embezzled by fixers.[36][38]
The novel was listed as an E! online Top 20 Books to read in 2020 and a New York Times Editor's Choice. It was also named a best book of the year for 2019 by the BBC, Houston Chronicle, Financial Times, TIME, Amazon.com, Publishers Weekly, Minnesota Star Tribune, Waterstones, ChannelsTV, Columbia Tribune, New York Library, Manchester Union, and Brittlepaper, as well as being Salman Rushdie's Celebrity Pick of the Year.
The Road to the Country
Obioma's third novel, The Road to the Country (2024), centres on the Nigerian civil war. A review by Aminatta Forna in The Guardian states: "It is not clear what to take from the book, except that war is brutal. The reader is left with a feeling of pain for the lives wantonly destroyed, for mothers and fathers bereft of sons and daughters, for a country still healing more than 50 years later. The Road to the Country is a literary quest, the hope being that fictional invention will be more convincing than any history book, a vital part of the attempt to keep the past as living memory. In this, Obioma has succeeded masterfully."[7] According to Blake Morrison, writing in The London Review of Books: "As Obioma sees it, The Road to the Country isn't 'wartime fiction' like Half of a Yellow Sun, which follows characters (mostly middle-class) living through a war, but 'war fiction', where the focus is on the people doing the fighting rather than civilians."[39]
Other publications
Obioma has published several short stories: a short story version of The Fishermen in Virginia Quarterly Review,[40] "The Great Convert" in Transition magazine,[41] "Midnight Sun" in the New Statesman,[42] and "The Strange Story of the World" on Granta.com.[43] He has also published several essays: "The Audacity of Prose" in The Millions;[44] "Teeth Marks: The Translator's Dilemma" in Poets & Writers;[45] "Finding The Light Under The Bushel: How One Writer Came To Love Books" in The New York Times; and "The Ghosts of My Student Years in Northern Cyprus," "Lagos is expected to double in size in 15 years: how will my city possibly cope?", "Africa Has Been Failed By Westernisation," "Life-Saving Optimism: What the West Can Learn From Africa," and "Toni Morrison: Farewell to America's Greatest Writer" in The Guardian.
