An Orchestra of Minorities

Reading Chigozie Obioma, Biafra, and Igbo cosmology, a philosopher reflects on “the shrunken role of Nigerian writers today” and their “inability to perceive the shifting of the tectonic plates.” Arguing that the Achebean tradition has created novelists who “wish to be free of the responsibility of the oracle but ache to inherit that reverence,” it is a decrial of the metaphysical gap in our realist fiction, and a rallying cry for mythos and “oracular insight.”

Shortlisted for his first two novels, The Fishermen and An Orchestra of Minorities, the Nigerian writer tells us what the prize means to him and what he will look out for on the panel.