The Fishermen

In this striking novel about an unforgettable childhood, four Nigerian brothers encounter a madman whose mystic prophecy of violence threatens the core of their close-knit family

Told by nine-year-old Benjamin, the youngest of four brothers, The Fishermen is the Cain and Abel-esque story of a childhood in Nigeria, in the small town of Akure. When their father has to travel to a distant city for work, the brothers take advantage of his absence to skip school and go fishing. At the forbidden nearby river, they meet a madman who persuades the oldest of the boys that he is destined to be killed by one of his siblings. What happens next is an almost mythic event whose impact-both tragic and redemptive-will transcend the lives and imaginations of the book’s characters and readers.

Dazzling and viscerally powerful, The Fisherman is an essential novel about Africa, seen through the prism of one family’s destiny.

作者簡介

奇戈契．歐比奧馬（Chigozie Obioma）

　　1986年生於奈及利亞南方的阿庫雷（Akure），一個有十二名孩子的大家庭中。他會說伊博語、約魯巴語、英語，從小就被希臘神話與英國文學大師的作品深深吸引。他在美國密西根大學修習創意寫作碩士學位期間，獲得霍普伍德獎（Hopwood Awards）的小說與詩歌獎項；作品曾出現在《維吉尼亞評論季刊》與印第安納大學的《過渡雜誌》。

　　歐比奧馬的首部小說《浮生釣手》於2015年春天發行以來，多次得到重要文學獎的肯定，以及獲選重要媒體、通路的年度好書。不僅進入2015年曼布克獎決選，《紐約時報》讚譽他為非洲近代文學之父阿契貝（Chinua Achebe）的傳人，也被《外交政策》雜誌選為2015年全球思想家百大必讀小說。

　　歐比奧馬目前定居美國，在內布拉斯加大學林肯校區教授文學與創意寫作。其打動無數書評家與讀者的小說《浮生釣手》，目前已授權25種語言，發行29個國家。

　　Chigozie Obioma was born in Akure, Nigeria. His work has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Transition and The Millions, among others. Obioma has lived in Nigeria, Cyprus, and Turkey, and currently resides in the United States, where he teaches Literature and Writing at the University of Nebraska. The Fishermen is his first novel.