Sikkim Journal

Columbia, South Carolina – Kirian Obioha has officially released The First Cherry: The Chicken That Learned to Fly, the first novel in The Cherry Trilogy. Set between Nigeria and the United States during the 1980s, the book follows a young man whose dream of studying engineering in America leads him into a life shaped by cultural discovery, romance, friendship, racial injustice, and the difficult search for belonging.

The novel introduces Kobie Obie, a determined Nigerian student who has imagined America long before he ever sets foot there. As a child, Kobie witnesses the consequences of neglected infrastructure and becomes fascinated by the roads, bridges, dams, and monuments he associates with American engineering. He begins to dream of travelling abroad, earning an education, and returning with the knowledge needed to help transform his country.

That ambition is strengthened by a proverb passed down through his family: if a person wants to eat the cherry fruit, they must first plant the seed and climb the tree. The proverb becomes more than a childhood lesson. It becomes the guiding philosophy of Kobie’s life.

For Kobie, success is not something that arrives by accident. It requires prayer, discipline, sacrifice, and the courage to keep climbing even after a fall.

His opportunity finally arrives when he is accepted into Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina. With his family’s hopes resting heavily on his shoulders, Kobie leaves Nigeria and begins a journey into the America he has previously known only through music, television, films, books, and the stories of friends.

His arrival is both exhilarating and unsettling.

Airports, winter weather, unfamiliar food, American slang, clothing, money, dating customs, and everyday social expectations become part of an education that no college brochure could have prepared him for. Some of these experiences are humorous. Others expose how easily an innocent misunderstanding can place a newcomer in an uncomfortable or dangerous position.

One of Kobie’s earliest lessons comes through a sweatshirt he purchases without fully understanding the message printed across it. The mistake becomes an awkward introduction to the importance of language, context, and cultural codes. His first experience with New York cheesecake proves equally memorable, although for entirely different reasons.

These lighter moments provide warmth and humour, but they also reveal one of the novel’s central concerns. Moving to a new country does not simply involve learning where to live or how to study. It means learning an entirely new set of meanings.

A word, colour, gesture, or habit that seems harmless in one place may carry a completely different significance elsewhere.

Kobie’s friendship with Fred becomes an essential part of that learning process. Fred has already spent time in America and understands many of the unwritten rules Kobie has yet to discover. He helps Kobie interpret the new world around him while reminding him of the home and history they share.

Their friendship brings humour and familiarity to the story, but it also becomes a source of protection. Fred understands that cultural confusion can carry serious consequences, particularly for a young Black immigrant navigating institutions that may judge him before they understand him.

Alongside his studies and friendships, Kobie begins to explore love and desire in ways that are closely connected to the title of the book.

Cherrie becomes part of his pursuit of a fuller life. She represents beauty, possibility, romance, and the hope that the future he imagined may finally be within reach. Yet the path towards love is no easier than the path towards education or belonging.

Kobie must balance his romantic hopes with academic responsibility, immigration concerns, family expectations, cultural differences, and the growing awareness that America is not always the country he imagined from afar.

Although The First Cherry contains humour, music, romance, and youthful optimism, the novel does not present immigration as a simple journey from hardship to success.

Nigeria is not treated merely as a place Kobie must leave behind, and America is not presented as a guaranteed reward for his ambition. Both countries are portrayed through their possibilities and contradictions.

Kobie loves the people, traditions, memories, and voices he leaves behind. At the same time, he remains drawn to the opportunities he believes America can offer. His challenge is not simply choosing one country over another. It is learning how to live between worlds without losing the parts of himself that existed before the journey began.

The novel takes a more urgent turn when Kobie faces racial profiling, wrongful arrest, systemic injustice, and the particular vulnerability of being both Black and foreign in the United States.

The 1980s setting adds weight to these experiences. Kobie enters an America without mobile phones capable of recording injustice and without social media platforms that can instantly bring public attention to private suffering. When he is misunderstood or falsely accused, he must navigate institutions that hold far more authority than he does.

Through these experiences, the promise of the American dream is placed beside the reality of who is allowed to pursue it safely.

Obioha does not allow injustice to become Kobie’s entire identity. The character remains curious, hopeful, flawed, funny, romantic, and ambitious. His story includes music, dancing, friendships, family conversations, cultural surprises, academic pressure, and the daily effort required to build a life in an unfamiliar country.

Music plays a particularly important role throughout the novel. African sounds, American rock, disco, pop, and soul help establish the period while reflecting Kobie’s evolving identity. The songs he hears become emotional markers, connecting the life he has left behind with the life beginning to form around him.

At its heart, The First Cherry is a novel about transformation.

Kobie arrives in America hoping to become an engineer, but his education extends far beyond the classroom. He must learn to recognise danger, recover from embarrassment, accept help, confront prejudice, understand love, and decide what belonging means when the world repeatedly asks him to prove that he deserves a place within it.

The novel also carries the personal influence of Obioha’s own journey. His grandmother Isang’s proverbs became a foundation for the novel’s central imagery, while his mother, Fidelia Obioha, inspired the parental strength and sacrifice woven through Kobie’s story. The book is dedicated to immigrants who have crossed oceans in pursuit of dreams, often in languages and cultures different from their own.

With the publication of The First Cherry, Obioha has begun a story designed to unfold across three books.

The second novel, Cherry Ripe, will continue Kobie’s journey as he confronts the consequences of injustice and searches for another chance at freedom, dignity, and love. The final volume, The Last Cherry, will turn towards family, inheritance, and the ways dreams and wounds pass from one generation to the next.

The trilogy reflects the same lesson at the centre of the first novel. Falling is not the end of the journey. The important question is whether a person is willing to rise and climb again.

The First Cherry: The Chicken That Learned to Fly is now available to readers. The book also includes discussion questions for book clubs and a preview of the next stage of Kobie’s story.

About the Author

Kirian Obioha was born in Nigeria and later immigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Columbia, South Carolina, where much of Kobie’s story unfolds. After building a successful career in business and raising a family, Obioha returned to the writing ambition he had carried for more than three decades. His fiction draws upon the immigrant experience, cultural identity, family wisdom, love, ambition, and the difficult realities behind the American dream.

Obioha lives in Columbia with his wife and is the father of three adult children. He is continuing work on the remaining volumes of The Cherry Trilogy.

For more details, contact:

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (803) 312-1949

Website: https://cherry.astrabooksusa.com/

Visit https://cherry.astrabooksusa.com/ to learn more about The First Cherry and discover where to purchase the book.

Media Contact
Company Name: Astra Books USA
Contact Person: Kirian Obioha
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: cherry.astrabooksusa.com