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Find out moreChigozie Obioma was born in 1986 in Akure, Nigeria, and currently lives in the United States. He is an assistant professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His debut novel, The Fishermen, is winner of the inaugural FT/Oppenheimer Award for Fiction, the NAACP Image Awards for Debut Literary Work, and the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction (Los Angeles Times Book Prizes); and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize 2015, as well as for several other prizes in the US and UK. Obioma was named one of Foreign Policy's 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2015.
Umuahia, Nigeria. Chinonso, a young poultry farmer, sees a woman attempting to jump to her death from a highway bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, Chinonso joins her on the roadside and hurls two of his most prized chickens into the water below to demonstrate the severity of the fall. The woman, Ndali, is moved by his sacrifice. Bonded by this strange night on the bridge, Chinonso and Ndali fall in love. But Ndali is from a wealthy family, and when they officially object to the union because he is uneducated, Chinonso sells most of his possessions to attend a small college in Cyprus. Once in Cyprus, he discovers that all is not what it seems. Furious at a world which continues to relegate him to the sidelines, Chinonso gets further and further away from his dream, from Ndali and the place he called home. In this contemporary twist of Homer's Odyssey, in the mythic style of the Igbo literary tradition, Chigozie Obioma weaves a heart-wrenching epic about the tension between destiny and determination.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 From the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel, The Fishermen 'Obioma is truly the heir to Chinua Achebe' New York Times A young farmer named Chinonso prevents a woman from falling to her death. Bonded by this strange night on the bridge, he and Ndali fall in love, but it is a mismatch according to her family who reject him because of his lowly status. Is it love or madness that makes Chinonso think he can change his destiny? Set across Nigeria and Cyprus, An Orchestra of Minorities, written in the mythic style of the Igbo tradition, weaves a heart-wrenching tale about fate versus free will. _______________________________________________________________________________ 'A spectacular artistic leap' Guardian 'Brilliantly original' The Economist 'A remarkable talent' Independent 'Few contemporary novels achieve the seductive panache of Obioma's heightened language, with its mixture of English, Igbo and colourful African-English phrases, and the startling clarity of the dialogue. The story is extreme; yet its theme is a bid for mercy for that most fragile of creatures - a human' Eileen Battersby, Guardian
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 From the Author of the Booker-shortlisted novel, The Fishermen 'Obioma is truly the heir to Chinua Achebe' New York Times A young farmer named Chinonso prevents a woman from falling to her death. Bonded by this strange night on the bridge, he and Ndali fall in love, but it is a mismatch according to her family who reject him because of his lowly status. Is it love or madness that makes Chinonso think he can change his destiny? Set across Nigeria and Cyprus, An Orchestra of Minorities, written in the mythic style of the Igbo tradition, weaves a heart-wrenching tale about fate versus free will. ______________________________________________________________________________ 'A spectacular artistic leap' Guardian 'Brilliantly original' The Economist 'A remarkable talent' Independent 'Few contemporary novels achieve the seductive panache of Obioma's heightened language, with its mixture of English, Igbo and colourful African-English phrases, and the startling clarity of the dialogue. The story is extreme; yet its theme is a bid for mercy for that most fragile of creatures - a human' Eileen Battersby, Guardian
In a small town in western Nigeria, four young brothers - the youngest is nine, the oldest fifteen - use their strict father's absence from home to go fishing at a forbidden local river. They encounter a dangerous local madman who predicts that the oldest brother will be killed by another. This prophecy breaks their strong bond and unleashes a tragic chain of events of almost mythic proportions. Passionate and bold, The Fishermen is a breathtakingly beautiful novel firmly rooted in the best of African storytelling. With this powerful debut, Chigozie Obioma emerges as one of the most original new voices of modern African literature.
In a small Nigerian town, Ben and Obembe, along with their two older brothers, slip away to fish at a forbidden river. Unnoticed and carefree, they continue until one day the prophecy of a madman changes the course of their lives forever. Based on the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel by one of Africa's major new voices, New Perspectives, in association with HOME, present Chigozie Obioma's powerful allegory of brotherhood, vengeance and fate in a new adaptation by Fringe First-winning playwright Gbolahan Obisesan.
Nigeria in the 1990s: Four brothers from a quiet middle-class family the oldest 15, and the youngest nine take advantage of their fathers extended absence to skip school and go fishing at a forbidden river. There, they encounter Abulu, a vision-seeing madman whose prophecy of violence will follow the boys through their lives, and shake up their family in both devastatingly tragic and yet redemptive ways.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 MAN BOOKER PRIZE Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award Winner of the FT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices Award Longlisted for the Etisalat Prize for Literature In a small town in western Nigeria, four young brothers - the youngest is nine, the oldest fifteen - use their strict father's absence from home to go fishing at a forbidden local river. They encounter a dangerous local madman who predicts that the oldest brother will be killed by another. This prophesy breaks their strong bond and unleashes a tragic chain of events of almost mythic proportions. Passionate and bold, The Fishermen is a breathtakingly beautiful novel firmly rooted in the best of African storytelling. With this powerful debut, Chigozie Obioma emerges as one of the most original new voices of modern African literature.
WINNER OF THE 2016 NAACP IMAGE AWARDS IN THE OUTSTANDING LITERARY WORK - DEBUT AUTHOR CATEGORYSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 MAN BOOKER PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARDIn a small town in western Nigeria, four young brothers - the youngest is nine, the oldest fifteen - use their strict father's absence from home to go fishing at a forbidden local river. They encounter a dangerous local madman who predicts that the oldest brother will be killed by another. This prophecy breaks their strong bond, and unleashes a tragic chain of events of almost mythic proportions. Passionate and bold, The Fishermen is a breathtakingly beautiful novel, firmly rooted in the best of African storytelling. With this powerful debut, Chigozie Obioma emerges as one of the most original new voices in world literature.PRAISE FOR CHIGOZIE OBOMA'It's like being in a Zola or Theodore Dreiser novel The Fishermen is an elegy to lost promise and yet it remains hopeful about the redemptive possibilities of a new generation' The Guardian'[S]tructurally complex a novel of uncommon grace.' The Saturday Age
Told from the point of view of nine-year-old Benjamin, the youngest of four brothers, The Fishermen is the Cain and Abel-esque story of an unforgettable childhood in 1990s Nigeria. When their father has to travel to a distant city for work, the brothers take advantage of his extended absence to skip school and go fishing. At the forbidden nearby river they encounter a madman, who predicts that one of the brothers will kill another. What happens next is an almost mythic event whose impact - both tragic and redemptive - will transcend the lives and imaginations of both its characters and its readers.
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