Booker nominee Obioma moves to Hutchinson Heinemann with 'modern classic'

Chigozie Obioma, who has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, is moving to Hutchinson Heinemann in a two-book deal.

Ailah Ahmed, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Nigeria, to The Road to the Country and one other from Anna Webber at United Agents, on behalf of Bill Clegg at The Clegg Agency. David Ebershoff at Hogarth will publish in the US. The date for publication has not yet been announced.

Obioma’s previous two novels The Fishermen (One) and An Orchestra of Minorities (Abacus) were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

The Road to the Country is described by the publisher as “an extraordinary coming-of-age story following a university student in Lagos who decides to search for his missing brother, lost in the chaos of Nigeria’s civil war".

Its synopsis continues: “In 1950s Nigeria, a bereaved seer embarks on a visionary journey into the future of a child yet unborn. That boy, Kunle, is a university student in Lagos burdened with a guilty conscience and who sets out to rescue his missing brother from Biafra, a country at war, only to find himself conscripted to fight in one of the most devastating and under-examined conflicts of the 20th century.

“The fate of the seer and the young soldier will merge in a devastating and epic coming-of-age novel akin to war classics such as All Quiet on the Western Front.”

Obioma said: “The Road to the Country is for me a return to the subject of sibling rivalry and the search for reckoning explored through the lens of two men who are burdened—one with grief, and the other, with a guilty conscience.

“It is also an attempt to fill a gap I believe is essential: a lot of non-fiction and most of the fiction on the war have mostly dwelt on civilians living through the mayhem. My hope is that this book fills that gap. I could not be more thrilled to move with Ailah Ahmed to Hutchinson Heinemann.

“Ahmed is a wonderful editor and extraordinary publisher, and the combination of herself and David Ebershoff of Hogarth US is any writer’s dream.”

Ahmed said: “I am so delighted to be publishing The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma. Chigozie is one of the most important and talented writers  of our generation. I can’t think of another writer under 40 who has had two out of two novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He is ambitious with every new novel but this –– The Road to the Country – about the Biafran War, is sure to become a modern classic.”