The Booker Prizes celebrates the world’s most outstanding fiction, whether written in or translated into English, and each month they shine a spotlight on a different book from the Booker Library.
This month, they are celebrating Chigozie Obioma’s The Fishermen, with an in-depth reading guide and an extract from the book, an illuminating interview with Chigozie Obioma and a chance to win a copy of the book. Access the Booker Monthly Spotlight today.
We will be sharing the Booker Prizes Monthly Spotlight for you to enjoy each month.
Introducing the Booker Prizes November Monthly Spotlight: The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma.
Chigozie Obioma combines classic African storytelling with contemporary fiction in a haunting debut novel that’s suffused with supernatural power.
In a small Nigerian town in the mid-1990s, four young brothers take advantage of their strict father’s absence to go fishing in a forbidden river. They encounter a dangerous local madman, whose mystic prophecy of violence threatens the very core of their close-knit family. He predicts that one of the brothers will kill another, unleashing a tragic chain of events.
Ten years after The Fishermen was shortlisted, Obioma reflects on his inspirations and influences, his strong bond with the characters he creates, and how being a Booker Prize judge in 2021 made him a faster reader.
Obioma was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2015, after the huge impact of The Fishermen. Born in Akure, Nigeria, in 1986, his other novels are An Orchestra of Minorities (2019) and The Road to the Country (2024).
The Booker Prize 2025
The 2025 shortlist for the Booker Prize —the world’s most significant award for a single work of fiction—has been announced.
Find out all about the shortlist here.
Reminder of the longlist here
Get your shortlist digital pack here.
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