"I've always wanted to write something that will show the world that prior to the coming of the British to Nigeria, we had some kind of complex systems. I feel like there hasn't been an African version of, say, Milton's "Paradise Lost" which actually explored the very foundational principle of Western civilization, which would be the free will. Or even Dante Alighieri's "Inferno." So I wanted to write something cosmological, and the chi has been very fascinating to me. It was very difficult, it entailed a lot of research, even down to actually going to shrines and interviewing the last adherents of Odinani, the Igbo religion, now that most Africans are converts to either Christianity or Islam…"
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On what he envisioned for his novel An Orchestra of Minorities in “The Spirit Tells The Story In 'Orchestra Of Minorities'” in NPR (2019 Jan 5)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chigozie_Obioma
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Chigozie Obioma
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