Nigerian authors Chigozie Obioma and Ayobami Adebayo will discuss Obioma’s forthcoming book The Road to the Country on June 2 at the Southbank Centre in London. If you’re in the area, we highly recommend you sign up for tis exclusive conversation.

The Southbank Centre is largest arts centre in the UK and one of the nation’s top visitor attractions. The event will consist of readings, conversation and audience questions, centered on Obioma’s 2024 novel releasing in May in the UK and in June in the US.

Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, The Road to the Country is the epic story of a shy, bookish student haunted by long-held guilt and shame who must go to war to free himself. Intertwining myth and realism, the novel is a powerful story about Nigeria’s civil war. Preorder here.

Chigozie Obioma is a Nigerian award-winning writer whose first novel, The Fishermen, was a finalist for the Booker prize and won a number of prizes including an NAACP Image award, an LA Art Seidenbaum award, among others and was translated into 26 languages. His second novel, An Orchestra of Minorities, was also shortlisted for the Booker prize.

Ayòbámi Adébáyò was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature, was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize and the Kwani Manuscript Prize. The French translation was awarded the Prix Les Afriques. Her second novel, A Spell of Good Things, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Date: Sunday, June 2, 2024

Time: 7:45pm BST

Location: Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, UK

Tickets: Starting from £15

Get tickets here.