A story about a Nigerian poultry farmer—and his guiding spirit, or chi—who sacrifices everything to win the woman he loves by the Man Booker finalist and author of The Fishermen.
It goes without saying, of course, that [Obioma's] tricks are not for kids and that only a master of literary form could manage to pull them off ... Obioma’s choice of narrator enhances the work’s timeless quality ... In An Orchestra of Minorities, Obioma deploys whatever literary means necessary to retrieve the precious African knowledge that has been lost. It is more than a superb and tragic novel; it’s a historical treasure.
An Orchestra of Minorities is more expansive in form, broader in reach [than Obioma's previous novel] ... [As a result of the narrative strategy, Chinonso’s] emotions can sometimes be hard to connect with when filtered through the distant lens of the chi. This is a story, then, in which the events take place behind a veil, and the intensity of passion is dimmed ... The novel comes alive in those moments when it captures the alienation of foreigners in strange lands ... Obioma is especially good at exposing such instances of casual racism ... It’s a story as old as the epic, but, sadly, an all too modern one.
[The plot] may sound like something of a forced march through the Stations of the Cross, but Mr. Obioma keeps a philosophical distance from the hardships through a striking narrative framework ... Originality is a rare commodity in fiction, and Mr. Obioma’s writing sounds like nobody else’s ... And it’s amid the sweat and cries of humankind that Mr. Obioma is best[.]
