Chigozie Obioma

Chigozie Obioma
Obioma in 2016
Born1986 (age 39–40)
Akure, Nigeria
Occupation
  • Author
  • poet
  • professor
Alma materCyprus International University University of Michigan
Period2011–present
Notable worksThe Fishermen (2015)
An Orchestra of Minorities (2019) The Road to the Country (2024).
Website
chigozieobioma.com
LiteratureXchange Festival
Aarhus (Denmark 2024)
Photo Hreinn Gudlaugsson

Chigozie Obioma Listen(1986) was born in Akure, Nigeria. He is the author of three novels The Fishermen (2015), An Orchestra of Minorities (2019) and The Road to the Country (2024). The Fishermen and An Orchestra of Minorities were finalists for the Booker Prize and have been translated into 30 languages. He has won an LA Times book prize, the Internationaler Literaturpris, FT/Oppenheimer prize for fiction, an NAACP Image Award and has been nominated for two dozen prizes for fiction. He was named one of Foreign Policy's 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2015 and on the 100 Most Influential Africans list by NewAfrican magazine in 2015 and 2024.

Obioma served as a judge of the Booker Prize in 2021. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Paris Review, Granta, and elsewhere. His third novel, The Road to the Country, published in 2024 was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize for fiction, the Dublin prize for fiction, and was named a best book of the year by The Economist, Boston Globe, among others. Obioma is the Helen S. Lanier Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Georgia and the programme director of the Oxbelly Fiction Writers retreat.