Chigozie Obioma

Chigozie Obioma (1986) was born in Akure, Nigeria. He is the author of three novels: The Fishermen (2015), An Orchestra of Minorities (2019) and The Road to the Country (2024). The Fishermen and An Orchestra of Minorities were finalists for the Booker Prize and have been translated into 30 languages. He has won an LA Times book prize, the Internationaler Literaturpris, FT/Oppenheimer prize for fiction, an NAACP Image Award and has been nominated for two dozen prizes for fiction. He was named one of Foreign Policy's 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2015 and on the 100 Most Influential Africans list by NewAfrican magazine in 2015 and 2024.

Obioma served as a judge of the Booker Prize in 2021. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Paris Review, Granta, and elsewhere. His third novel, The Road to the Country, published in 2024 was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize for fiction, the Dublin Literary Award for fiction, and was named a best book of the year by The Economist and Boston Globe, among others. Obioma is currently the Helen S. Lanier Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Georgia and the programme director of the Oxbelly Fiction Writers retreat.

Early life and influences

Of Igbo descent, Obioma was born in 1986 into a family of 12 children — seven brothers and four sisters – in Akure, in the south-western part of Nigeria, where he grew up speaking Yoruba, Igbo, and English.

As a child, he was fascinated by Greek myths and British writers, including Shakespeare, John Milton, and John Bunyan. Among African writers, he developed a strong affinity for Wole Soyinka's The Trials of Brother Jero; Cyprian Ekwensi's An African Night's Entertainment; Camara Laye's The African Child; and D. O. Fagunwa's Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmalẹ̀, which he read in its original Yoruba version.

Obioma cites his seminal influences as The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola, for its breadth of imagination; Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, for its enduring grace and heart; The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, both for the power of their prose; and Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe, for its firmness in Igbo culture and philosophy.

Education

Obioma was awarded a residency at Omi's Ledig House in 2012, and completed a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan, where he received Hopwood Awards for fiction (2013) and poetry (2014).

Career and other activities

In December 2020, Obioma was named as a judge for the 2021 Booker Prize.

He served as the James E. Ryan Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

In January 2023, Obioma announced that he joined the Oxbelly Writers Retreat, a writers' retreat that was founded by Christos Konstantakoupolous 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.

As of 2024, he is Helen S. Lanier Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Georgia.

In 2026, Obioma was named as a producer in the Nollywood rom-com, Call of My Life, which became the highest-grossing movie of the year in Nigeria.

Writing

The Fishermen

Obioma finished his first novel, The Fishermen, while completing his residency at Ledig House in 2012. It was published in 2015, and won many accolades. It was listed as a 2015 New York Times Sunday Book Review Notable Book, a New York Times Sunday Book Review Editor's Choice selection, and a best book of the year for 2015 by The Observer (UK), The Economist, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Apple/iBook, Book Riot, the Minnesota Star Tribune, NPR, Library Journal, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the New Zealand Listener, Relevant Magazine, British GQ, and others. The Fishermen was also named one of the American Library Association's five best debuts of spring 2015, a Publishers Weekly book of the week, and one of Kirkus Reviews′ "10 Novels to Lose Yourself In." In December 2019 it was named one of the best books of the decade by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National's "book experts", Kate Evans and Sarah L'Estrange.

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, the Nebraska Book Award For Fiction 2016, and the Earphones Award for the Audiobook of The Fishermen.

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." He began writing the novel in 2009, while living in Cyprus to complete his bachelor's degree at Cyprus International University, where he graduated at the top of his class. 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).

New Perspectives theatre company presented a stage adaptation of The Fishermen adapted by Gbolahan Obisesan from 2018.