An Orchestra of Minorities, Chigozie Obioma
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.

About Chigozie Obioma

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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Emily May on January 08, 2019

Agbatta-Alumalu, the fathers of old say that without light, a person cannot sprout shadows. My host fell in love with this woman. She came as a strange, sudden light that caused shadows to spring from everything else. Wow. How do I even begin to review this book? All words seem inadequate. It is......more

Goodreads review by Kevin on August 20, 2022

"A story should glide like a yacht, not bump along like a supermarket trolley." —Me Having seen a profusion of rapturous reviews for this African tale, I had very high hopes. And what a gorgeous title too! I was beguiled and ready to be seduced. "Let me at it!" I cried. Hurrr-rrr-chh! (A screech of......more

Goodreads review by Manny on January 05, 2019

If the prey do not produce their version of the tale, the predators will always be the heroes in the story of the hunt, says the quotation which opens this unusual and beautiful novel; and indeed, we come to understand that the "minorities" in its title are the prey, so often voiceless, who are now......more

Goodreads review by Meike on September 03, 2019

Now Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2019 I feel torn between the considerable merit of this tale about the loss of dignity and the fact that I had a very hard time finishing the book because of its repetitiveness and its excessive love for overly detailed descriptions: For what it has to say, this n......more

Goodreads review by Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer on September 03, 2019

Now shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize having been re-read following its longlisting. As part of my re-read I came across two articles in the Millions by the author which I found very helpful for understanding the writing style that the author has deployed is and it’s very deliberate contrast in i......more


Quotes

"This is a book that wrenches the heart with its story of love, migration and inner turmoil, told with remarkable language from start to finish. Narrated by a cast of characters from Igbo spiritual tradition, the story of Chinonso, the chicken farmer begins and ends with tragedy. But his quest for a life with Ndali, the woman he loves, drives him to seek status and wealth as an African migrant in Europe, to transcend Nigeria's formidable class boundaries. The spirits look down on these human dramas of small town Nigeria and reveal the rich complexity of another realm along the way. Obioma's is a tale of Odyssian proportions that makes the heart soar, and a crucial journey into a heartache that is both mythical and real. A stunning book."—Booker Prize 2019 Jury citation

"Gorgeously written, with a twist of magical realism and a heavy dose of sad reality."—Washington Post

"Transcendent . . . Chigozie Obioma's second novel is a rare treasure: a book that deepens the mystery of the human experience."—Seattle Times

"Igbo and Greek mythology are braided into this heartbreaking and utterly unique novel"Boris Kacka, Vulture

"Obioma's frenetically assured second novel is a spectacular artistic leap forwards . . . [it is] a linguistically flamboyant, fast-moving, fatalistic saga of one man's personal disaster . . . 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

"Brilliantly intertwining the human and spirit worlds. A major new African writer."—Salman Rushdie

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

"Obioma writes with an exigent precision that makes AN ORCHESTRA OF MINORITIES feel at once timely and speculative. The novel aches with Chinonso. His triumphs are rare and hard-won. Obioma compels the reader to root for him, to see the poor chicken farmer's story as an epic."—The Atlantic

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

"It's a story as old as the epic."—New York Times Book Review