Obioma talks 'Africa as Story' at Barcelona Contemporary Culture Centre

Chigozie Obioma gave an April 13 lecture entited "Africa as Story" at the Barcelona Contemporary Culture Centre in Spain. Previous CCCB lecturers have included Umberto Eco and Salman Rushdi. The lecture is available in English with Spanish or Catalán subtitles on the CCCB web page and Vimeo.

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From CCCB's website:

Following the success of his first novel, young Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma shares his vision on the reality of his country and the construction of Africa as a story.

In his first novel, Chigozie Obioma tells the story of four brothers whose fates are poisoned by a madman’s curse. With the famously stolen Nigerian elections of 1993 as his backdrop, the author weaves a parable of the country’s persistent troubles, tackling topics like colonization, corruption and fratricide with subtlety and depth. How was English rule like a vagrant’s prophecy? Does the hex wield its own power? Or is that power granted by those who believe in it?

Following his lecture, the author will speak with the journalist Ruth Fernandez, from the African art and culture magazine Wiriko.org.

Chigozie Obioma is a Nigerian writer and assistant profesor of literature and creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The New York Times has described him as “the heir to Chinua Achebe”. His latest novel, The Fishermen was published in April 2015 by Little, Brown and Company and was nominated for the Man Booker Prize 2015.

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On the heels of this honor, Obioma's novel The Fishermen won the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, an LA Times Book Prize.