Unfinished forgiveness: dynamics of Igbo cosmology and Christian theology in Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities

Abstract

Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities, a novel embedded in the Igbo traditions of Odinani, is acclaimed as a literary exercise in alternative cosmology. Yet the book is also seriously engaged with Christian theology. This essay argues that the novel’s account of wrongdoing, repentance, and remission, offers a careful analysis of the dynamics of Christian forgiveness, sharpened by its Igbo cosmological perspective. The tensions that it dramatizes between an honor-shame code and the demands of forgiveness, simultaneously critique the logic of retribution and problematize romantic and therapeutic models of forgiving. By dwelling on the complications of resolving offences, and opening taxing questions around political injustices, An Orchestra of Minorities pushes towards a refined moral grammar in which forgiveness is not impossible but routinely unfinished.