An Orchestra of Minorities

This is a book that takes you on a journey through love, naïveté, deceit and rage to a denouement from which there is little room to escape. Where the price of admission is gazing upon Igbo cosmology in amazement at the many names for gods and the hills and valleys where they reside. There is something very painterly and naturalist about the writing, and very tender. Even the shocks arrive with some warning, as though in conversation with the reader’s own chi. Written in the spirit of Homer’s Odyssey, this contemporary twist on the Greek tragedy plunges you into a world where an ordinary chicken farmer becomes someone to root for: a person with a fabled lineage you might not see when just looking at him in all his ordinariness, but whose destiny carries with it all the dreams and determination of his forebearers. Obioma brings an assured style to the tale, and a depth and wisdom that displays centuries-old knowledge passed down and kept alive in contemporary Igbo literature and culture. This is his second book, after 2015’s award-winning The Fishermen, and like its predecessor was a finalist for the Booker prize. Narrated by the protagonist’s chi (guardian spirit) it is a book to savour and relate to, especially when faced with one’s own experience of life’s inexorable pull towards uncertainty or misfortune.