An Orchestra of Minorities

Author/Guide: Chigozie Obioma

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: An epic tale about the tension between destiny and determination.

ISBN: 978-1408710807
Genre: Fiction

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What you need to know before your trail

Chinonso, a young poultry farmer, sees a woman attempting to jump to her death from a highway bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, Chinonso joins her on the roadside and hurls two of his most prized chickens into the water below to demonstrate the severity of the fall. The woman,Ndali, is moved by his sacrifice.

Bonded by this strange night on the bridge, Chinonso and Ndali fall in love. But Ndali is from a wealthy family, and when they officially object to the union because he is uneducated, Chinonso sells most of his possessions to attend a small college in Cyprus. Once in Cyprus, he discovers that all is not what it seems. Furious at a world which continues to relegate him to the sidelines, Chinonso gets further and further away from his dream, from Ndali and the place he called home.

Locations

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Travel Guide

Travel BookTrail style to a story of two countries, two cultures..

Umuahia

A city in the East of Nigeria that played a pivotal in the civil war there. This town has history, pride, a people who are strong and resourceful. Chinonso works as a poultry farmer and lives a simple life. He meets Ndali who is a medical student and from a higher clan. Their romance is frowned upon. It’s just outside of the city that he saves her life as she is about to jump from a bridge.

Cyprus

His affection for Ndali forces him to make daring sacrifices and he ends up on the island of Cyprus. This is where he hopes to reconnect with her. This is a country with its own problems – divided by a border and by two different cultures. He comes to this island as an outsier and remains one:

“They did not know that he was a man of great poverty, a man whose poverty extended beyond the diameter of time. In the past, what he owned he lost. In the present, he owned nothing. And in the in the prospected future, nothing.”

The Igbo culture

In the Igbo worldview, every human being has a chi who lives inside them. This chi has lived in bodies before and so comes with the experiences of the bodies/people it has inhabited earlier. The Chi then acts as an advisor and spiritual guide.