Reading guide: The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
In a small town in 1990s Nigeria, four brothers’ lives are unravelled by a devastating prophecy
Chigozie Obioma
Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice, and judged the prize in 2021
Born in Akure, Nigeria, in 1986, Chigozie Obioma is the author of three novels: The Fishermen (2015), An Orchestra of Minorities (2019) and The Road to the Country (2024).
Obioma was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2015, after the huge impact of his debut novel, The Fishermen. The book won the inaugural Financial Times/Oppenheimer Funds Emerging Voices Award for Fiction; the NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author; and the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction [Los Angeles Times Book Prizes]. The novel was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2015, as well as for several other prizes in the UK and US.
His second novel, An Orchestra of Minorities, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019. Obioma was a Booker Prize judge two years later, in 2021. He is the Helen S. Lanier Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Georgia, and is one of 12 siblings – with seven brothers and four sisters.
All nominated books
Chigozie Obioma combines classic African storytelling with contemporary fiction in this haunting fable suffused with supernatural power
In the mythic style of the Igbo literary tradition, Chigozie Obioma weaves a heart-wrenching epic about the tension between destiny and determination
