The Fishermen

Description

In a small town in western Nigeria, four young brothers - the youngest is nine, the oldest fifteen - use their strict father's absence from home to go fishing at a forbidden local river. The encounter a dangerous local madman who predicts that the oldest brother will be killed by another. This prophesy breaks their strong bond, and unleashes a tragic chain of events of almost mythic proportions. Passionate and bold, The Fishermen is a breathtakingly beautiful novel, firmly rooted in the best of African storytelling. With this powerful debut, Chigozie Obioma emerges as one of the most original new voices in world literature.

Chigozie Obioma was born in Akure, Nigeria. He was an OMI fellow at Ledig House, New York, and has won Hopwood Awards for fiction and poetry. He has lived in Nigeria, Cyprus, and Turkey, and currently lives in the United States, where he is a Helen Zell Fellow in creative writing at the University of Michigan. An excerpt of The Fishermen was published in Virginia Quarterly Review.

'Awesome in the true sense of the word: crackling with life, freighted with death, vertiginous both in its style and in the elemental power of its story. Few novels deserve to be called 'mythic', but Chigozie Obioma's The Fishermen is certainly one of them. A truly magnificent debut.';-Eleanor Catton, Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries;;'Obioma's remarkable fiction is at once urgently, vividly immediate, yet simultaneously charged with the elemental power of myth.';-Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl;;'Myth, madness and magic - this is an urgent book full of blood and beauty.';-Omar Musa, author of Here Come the Dogs;;'Obioma writes with gorgeous restraint reminiscent of the intricate prose in a Tolstoy novella. Every sentence delivers a precise and heartfelt blow. Hardly anyone writing today is delivering this level of intricacy, lyricism and control. Add to that, the urgency and importance of his message. It just doesn't get better than this. Get used to the name: Obioma is here to stay.';-Alexandra Fuller, award-winning author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight;;'Myth, madness and magic - this is an urgent book full of blood and beauty.';-Omar Musa, author of Here Come The Dogs;;'An impressive and well-written debut.';-The Australian Way;;'A striking, controlled and masterfully taut debut ... The tale has a timeless quality that renders it almost allegorical and it is the more powerful for it';-Carl Wilkinson, Financial Times;;'It's like being in a Zola or Theodore Dreiser novel ... The Fishermen is an elegy to lost promise ... and yet it remains hopeful about the redemptive possibilities of a new generation';-Helon Habila, The Guardian;;'The Fishermen establishes Obioma as a writer to be taken seriously ... ingenious, subtle, ambitious and intriguing';-Times Literary Supplement;;'Obioma's strange, imaginative debut ... probes the nature of belief and the power of family bonds ... convincing modern narrative and ... a majestic reimagining of timeless folklore';-Publishers Weekly;;'You will be haunted by this novel. Not only is the plight of the brothers compelling, but Chigozie Obioma's prose is exquisitely beautiful...Commentators are comparing this book to The Kite Runner for good reason. The Fishermen is shocking and moving-and as compelling as this comparison would suggest. Chigozie Obioma is a major talent, and I predict that this will be one of the books of the year.';Lauren Cook, Goodreading Magazine;;'Chigozie Obioma's debut novel, The Fishermen, is an outstanding addition to African literature.';-Readings Magazine;;'The Fishermen is poetic, powerful and a book that once began, is impossible to put down.';-Meredith Jaffe, The Hoopla;;An incredibly moving story of four brothers growing up in 90's Nigeria. Eleanor Catton called it 'awesome', we say what she said.';-Marie Claire Magazine