Christopher Chibueze Onyekuru

Fiction writer born in Nigeria, interested in the places where climate, power, belief and survival collide.

Chris grew up in a community where news arrived by mouth long before it arrived by phone — where an argument under a tree could shape how an entire village thought about land, politics or faith. Those rhythms still live inside his work.

His fiction is drawn to people who are not usually at the centre of official stories: farmers watching the rains shift; young people trying to leave or trying to stay; church members asking questions they are not supposed to ask; families negotiating the cost of survival in economies that were not built for them.

He is interested in how big themes — climate crisis, migration, corruption, belief — show up inside very small, very ordinary decisions. A vote cast. A tree cut down. A story told as a joke that lands as a warning.

What the stories keep circling

Climate and the village

Not as a distant “issue”, but as changing seasons, failed crops, flooded homes and arguments about who should carry the cost.

Faith and uncertainty

Churches, prayers and private doubts — how belief can both comfort and control, and how people navigate that tension.

Power close to home

Local politicians, village elders, party agents, landlords: everyday power struggles where “small” decisions reshape lives.

Leaving and staying

The inner and outer journeys of people who cross borders, and those who feel just as far from home while never leaving.

From listening to writing

Years of listening

Family gatherings, village meetings and arguments in buses become early lessons in dialogue, conflict and pacing.

First fragments

Short scenes and sketches appear in notebooks: a quarrel under a tree, a migrant in a crowded hostel, a pastor with more questions than answers.

Manuscripts

Drafting Sparklings Of Change and A Tragic Compulsion, revising each until the voices on the page feel as stubborn as the people who inspired them.

Toward publication

Preparing the work for readers, while continuing to listen for new stories in the everyday noise of life in Nigeria and beyond.