Chigozie Obioma

Chigozie Obioma
Obioma at the 2016 Texas Book Festival
Born	1986 Akure, Nigeria
Occupation	Professor, novelist, short story writer, poet, nonfiction writer
Nationality	Nigerian
Ethnicity	Igbo
Alma mater	University of Michigan
Period	2011 – present
Notable works	The Fishermen
Website
http://www.chigozieobioma.com

Chigozie Obioma (born 1986) is a Nigerian writer. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has been called, in a New York Times book review, "the heir to Chinua Achebe." In 2015, he was named one of "100 Global Thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine.

Of Igbo descent, Obioma was born into a family of 12 children — seven brothers and four sisters – in Akure, in the southwestern part of Nigeria, where he grew up speaking Yoruba, Igbo, and English. As a child, he was fascinated by Greek myths and the British masters, including Shakespeare, John Milton, and John Bunyan. Among African writers, he developed a strong affinity for Wole Soyinka's The Trials of Brother Jero; Cyprian Ekwensi's An African Night's Entertainment; Camara Laye's The African Child; and D. O. Fagunwa's Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmalẹ̀, which he read in its original Yoruba version. Obioma cites his seminal influences as The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola, for its breath of imagination; Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, for its enduring grace and heart; The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, both for the power of their prose; and Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe, for its firmness in Igbo culture and philosophy.