Obioma faces strong competition for the award with other nominees including Salman Rushdie’s forthcoming “Quichotte,” and “10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World” by Elif Shafak.

The nominees in full are:
Margaret Atwood, “The Testaments”
Kevin Barry, “Night Boat to Tangier”
Oyinkan Braithwaite, “My Sister, The Serial Killer”
Lucy Ellmann, “Ducks, Newburyport”
Bernardine Evaristo, “Girl, Woman, Other”
John Lanchester, “The Wall”
Deborah Levy, “The Man Who Saw Everything”
Valeria Luiselli, “Lost Children Archive”
Chigozie Onion’s, “An Orchestra of Minorities”
Max Porter, “Lanny”
Salman Rushdie, “Quichotte”
Elif Shafak, “10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World”
Jeanette Winterson, “Frankissstein.”