The protagonist, Chinonso ends up selling all his belongings to pursue higher education abroad to impress Ndali's parents.

He meets abject suffering in Northern Cyprus after being scammed and misled about his position at university and his return home is further delayed by imprisonment, hence his dream of marrying Ndali is further admonished to the sidelines.

In An Orchestra of Minorities, Obioma deploys whatever literary means necessary to retrieve the precious African knowledge that has been lost.

"[5] In her The Atlantic review, Hannah Giorgis writes that "In rendering his protagonist’s journey to Cyprus, and the scene that greets the unknowing Chinonso when he arrives, Obioma recasts Homer’s Odyssey.

For both tales’ heroes, “mere survival is the most amazing feat of all.” But where Odysseus thrashed “under Poseidon’s blows, gale winds and tons of sea,” Chinonso is betrayed by his fellow man.