"An Orchestra of Minorities" is Chigozie Obioma's 2nd novel. Both "The Fisherman" and this year's novel have been short-listed for the Man Booker. Both works of fiction are beautifully crafted and deeply moving. The narrator of "Minorities" is a chi; a guardian spirit who inhabits the body of a human host to offer protection and advice. Chinonso is the chi's current host. Chis are reincarnated spirits that are fused between spirit and body to form the ultimate bodily expression of creation. The chi presents Chinoso's life in testimony before a higher entities to dissuade them from condemning him for his errors an akliogoli, a vagabond spirit without a home in the heavenlies or on earth. The chi speaks plaintively and regretfully for not having instilled Chinoso with wiser judgements. This beautifuly written and tormenting tale contains a mixture of Igbo cosmology and African Lore, religion and culture. At its core is a love story between Chinoso and Ndali. A profound love derailed by an odyssey of tribulations befallen Chinoso that ruptures their union and destroys Chinoso and his beloved. The chi argues nothing cripples a human being more than unrequited and rebuffed love. "To harbor hatred in the heart is to keep an unfed tiger in a house filled with children." There are rules governing how much influence a chi may impose on his host. A chi cannot coerce its host, even in the face of the most violent dangers to himself or others. It's the persuasive voice of man's conscience that is omnipotent and relinquishes the guidance of one's chi. Obioma's skill with language is entrancing. We hear native tongues and current cadences in the "White Man's Language." Chigozie's imagined world of Igbo cosmology is captivating and mystifying. Still, it's the magnificent literary power of this absorbing work that gives "An Orchestra of Minorities" its celestial resonance. "The old fathers say that if a secret is kept for too long, even the deaf will come to hear it."
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