Chigozie Obioma

An Orchestra of Minorities

SYNOPSIS

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.

Spanning continents, traversing the earth and cosmic spaces, and told by a narrator who has lived for hundreds of years, the novel is a contemporary twist of Homer’s Odyssey. Written in the mythic style of the Igbo literary tradition, Chigozie Obioma weaves a heart-wrenching epic about destiny and determination..

BEST of THE YEAR 2019

EXCERPTS:

Read an excerpt/first chapter of An Orchestra of Minorities on Australia’s The Monthly

INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS:

CHINESE (Taiwan)

CHINESE (Simplified)

HUNGARIAN

ITALIAN

JAPANESE

NORWEGIAN

PORTUGUESE (Brazil)

SWEDISH

RUSSIAN

LITHUANIAN

TURKISH

Publishers Weekly

*Starred Review

Unforgettable second novel . . . Obioma’s novel is electrifying, a meticulously crafted character drama told with emotional intensity. His invention, combining Igbo folklore and Greek tragedy in the context of modern Nigeria, makes for a rich, enchanting experience.

Booklist

*Starred Review

Obioma alchemizes his contemporary love story into a mythic quest enhanced by Igbo cosmology. . . . Magnificently multilayered, Obioma’s sophomore title proves to be an Odyssean achievement.

Kirkus

*Starred Review

A deeply original book that will have readers laughing at, angry with, and feeling compassion for a determined hero who endeavors to create his own destiny.

The Economist

The chances that Chigozie Obioma’s second novel would match, let alone surpass, “The Fishermen,” were slim. Happily, his follow-up, AN ORCHESTRA OF MINORITIES, is a triumph. . . . In an era of copycats, “An Orchestra of Minorities” is an unusual and brilliantly original book

Hello Giggles

It is destined to become a classic.

TheRepublic

Lanre Apata

Obioma’s latest work has the makings of a classic; in the sense that Italo Calvino describes, Obioma has written ‘a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading

Boston Globe

In “An Orchestra of Minorities,’’ Obioma deploys whatever literary means necessary to retrieve the precious African knowledge that has been lost. It is more than a superb and tragic novel; it’s a historical treasure.

TIME

A mystical epic…confirms his place among a raft of literary stars.

Houston Chronicle

Andrew Darnsby

An Orchestra of Minorities” finds this remarkable talent working with a broader and grander canvas and proving up to the task…His is a bracing and searing work that compresses an ordinary life into an epic journey.