I find myself drawn to stories that take myths seriously. Writers like Leslie Marmon Silko, for example, bring to the forefront the oldest stories because she still sees the relevance in ancient knowledge. Recently, I read Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities (Little, Brown and Company), which offered another wonderful reminder of how myths can help us understand even the darkest stories set in our modern world. An Orchestra of Minorities is narrated by an ancient chi who has reincarnated in the bodies of countless Igbo human hosts throughout history, some who were even slaves in antebellum Virginia. The chi’s current host, Chinonso Solomon Olisa, is a poor poultry farmer in modern Nigeria. Through a selfless act, Chinonso saves a wealthy woman’s life. What begins as a serendipitous connection, however, quickly devolves into a series of tests and tribulations for Chinonso. Obioma’s take on the story-by-testimony form is refreshing. Chinonso’s chi must explain his host’s actions to Chukwu, the supreme deity of the Igbo pantheon. We learn at the outset that the chi’s host has done things, violent things. And as Hannah Arendt beautifully articulated, violence requires explanation, or else it’s mute. Only through testimony can there be judgment. I had the chance to see Chigozie Obioma discuss his novel at the 2019 Vancouver Writer’s Festival. When the moderator opened the floor to the audience, question after question directed Obioma to explaining Igbo mythology and spirituality. He had a mostly Christian upbringing and admitted that he sometimes caught himself getting carried away with the research for the novel. A lot of Igbo anthropology was thus enthusiastically smuggled into the book. Though an unfamiliarity with Igbo spirituality may seem overwhelming at first—one can neither rely on their familiarity with the Greek or Roman gods, nor would trendy Eastern teachings help—full immersion into Obioma’s writing is easy. He writes about the real world, after all, and he does so vividly and astutely.