An Orchestra of Minorities, Chigozie Obioma
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An Orchestra of Minorities

Author: Chigozie Obioma

Narrator: Chukwudi Iwuji

Unabridged: 18 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/08/2019


Synopsis

A heartbreaking story about a Nigerian poultry farmer who sacrifices everything to win the woman he loves, by Man Booker Finalist and author of The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma.

"It is more than a superb and tragic novel; it's a historical treasure."-Boston Globe

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 whose soul is ignited when he sees a woman attempting to jump from a highway bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, Chinonso joins her on the roadside and hurls two of his prized chickens into the water below to express the severity of such a fall. The woman, Ndali, is stopped her in her tracks.

Bonded by this night on the bridge, Chinonso and Ndali fall in love. But Ndali is from a wealthy family and struggles to imagine a future near a chicken coop. When her family objects to the union because he is uneducated, Chinonso sells most of his possessions to attend a college in Cyprus. But when he arrives he discovers there is no place at the school for him, and that he has been utterly duped by the young Nigerian who has made the arrangements... Penniless, homeless, and furious at a world which continues to relegate him to the sidelines, Chinonso gets further away from his dream, from Ndali and the farm 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.

Author Bio

Chigozie Obioma is winner of the inaugural Financial Times/Oppenheimer Funds Emerging Voices Award for Fiction; the NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work - Debut Author; the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction [Los Angeles Times Book Prizes]; it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2015, as well as for several other prizes in the UK and US. Obioma was named one of Foreign Policy magazine's 100 Leading Global Thinkers.

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