Chigozie Obioma is one of the most significant Nigerian writers of his generation. Born in Akure in 1986 and raised as the fifth of twelve children, he writes fiction that blends Igbo and Yoruba storytelling traditions with a modern, global sensibility. He is the Helen S. Lanier Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.
His debut novel, The Fishermen, was published in 2015. Set in a small Nigerian town in the 1990s, it examines brotherhood, prophecy and grief after four brothers fish in a forbidden river.
The book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2015 and won the inaugural Financial Times/Oppenheimer Funds Emerging Voices Award and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Debut Literary Work.
An Orchestra of Minorities followed in 2019. Narrated by a chi, an Igbo spiritual guardian, it explores love, migration and disillusionment through the experience of a poultry farmer in Cyprus. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019.
His third novel, The Road to the Country, appeared in 2024 and was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Obioma’s fiction has been translated into thirty languages. He was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2015 and served as a Booker Prize judge in 2021. He divides his time between the United States and Nigeria.
