Happiness Like Water

Here are Nigerian women at home and transplanted to the United States, building lives out of longing and hope, faith and doubt, the struggle to stay and the mandate to leave, the burden and strength of love. Here are characters faced with dangerous decisions, children slick with oil from the river, a woman in love with another despite the penalties. Here is a world marked by electricity outages, lush landscapes, folktales, buses that break down and never start up again. Here is a portrait of Nigerians that is surprising, shocking, heartrending, loving, and across social strata, dealing in every kind of change. Here are stories filled with language to make your eyes pause and your throat catch. Happiness, Like Water introduces a true talent, a young writer with a beautiful heart and a capacious imagination.

"Intricate, graceful prose propels Okparantas profoundly moving and illuminating book. I devoured these stories and immediately wanted more. This is an arrival."—NoViolet Bulawayo

"Okparanta's prose is tender, beautiful and evocative. These powerful stories of contemporary Nigeria are told with compassion and a certain sense of humor. What a remarkable new talent."—Chika Unigwe

"A haunting and startlingly original collection of short stories about the lives of Nigerians both at home and in America. Happiness, Like Water is a deeply affecting literary debut, the work of a sure and gifted new writer."—Julie Otsuka

—Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist

2014 Rolex Mentors and Protégés Arts Initiative Finalist in Literature

2014 Lambda Awards General Lesbian Fiction Finalist

2013 Society of Midland Authors Award Finalist

2013 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, Long-listed

2013 Caine Prize in African Writing Finalist

Editors' Choice, New York Times Book Review

The Guardian's Best African Fiction of 2013

2012 United States Artists Fellowship Nominated Author

“Full of movement…These tales will break your heart open. Okparanta guides you through her stories with lovely, surreal, haunting clarity.”

—New York Daily News

"Okparanta is an unpretentious writer, but her ambition comes through in the lives she renders—young Nigerian women divided between home and a new world."

—Vogue.com

"The stories in Okparantas first collection are quiet, often unnervingly so, in the manner of a stifled shriek…One character notes the silences that fall between her and her mother, ‘as if we no longer valued spoken words, as if spoken words were gaudy finishes on a delicate piece of art, unnecessary distractions from the masterpiece, whose substance was more meaningfully experienced if left unornamented. If this is Okparantas goal - the distillation of experience into something crystalline, stark but lustrous - she is well on her way there."

—New York Times Book Review

"Chinelo Okparanta was chosen as one of Grantas six new voices for 2012, and its easy to see why. Her short story collection, Happiness, Like Water (Mariner), is a triumph of a book. The ten stories are all short but powerful, tracing the lives of women from Okparantas native Nigeria…Ultimately Okparantas collection is not so much a statement about Nigerian women as it is a depiction of a few women who happen to be Nigerian going through universal issues in their own, unique social contexts. Its a book about Nigeria, about America, and about women everywhere told in short sentences and simple, matter-of-fact language that manages to be incredibly emotionally evocative nonetheless. Okparanta is a certainly a voice to watch, and clearly deserves a place on any bookshelf beside fellow Nigerian authors Achebe and Adichie."

—Bustle.com

"The stories are quiet and understated and lucid and gather up their power almost without the reader realizing it, then they break your heart, just like that. Such subtle and open and strong writing."

—The Millions

"This promising young author delivers an affecting collection, revolving around African women, at home and abroad, contemplating religion and love."—Time Out New York

"Okparanta pays great attention to detail, making it easy to get caught up in the problems of these women who must fend for themselves. . . She writes with compassion and strength for these nameless, faceless women who are unable to defend their own actions."—Bust

"Bittersweet. . .[Happiness, Like Water] is an extremely promising debut: the handling of tone and perspective is assured; the prose lucid and elegant throughout."—Financial Times (UK)

"The unsparing stories of Happiness, Like Water show Okparanta to be a champion of young, frequently misunderstood female protagonists whose voices are too often stifled."

—Daily Beast

"Okparanta skillfully introduces readers to a new world held back by old-world traditions"

—Publishers Weekly

"Nigeria, the vibrancy of its heart, the soul of its people, is captured in these stories."

—Kirkus

"[Okparanta] confirms her place as a writer to watch with the remarkable debut collection Hapiness, Like Water... A clear-eyed, sensitive debut collection of stories by a talented young Nigerian writer exploring themes of family, religion, longing and duty."

—Shelf Awareness

"Chinelo Okparantas debut collection is astonishing. Her narrators render their stories with such strength and intimacy, such lucidity and composure, that in each and every case the truths of their lives detonate deep inside the readers heart, with the power and force of revelation."

—Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers

"Okparanta's prose is tender, beautiful and evocative. These powerful stories of contemporary Nigeria are told with compassion and a certain sense of humour. What a remarkable new talent."

—Chika Unigwe, author of On Black Sisters Street

"Intricate, graceful prose propels Okparantas profoundly moving and illuminating book. I devoured these stories and immediately wanted more. This is an arrival."

—NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names and winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing

"A haunting and startlingly original collection of short stories about the lives of Nigerians both at home and in America. Okparantas characters are forced to make difficult, often impossible choices—a university student decides to go to work as an escort to pay for her mothers medical bills, a high school teacher is asked to come home to care for her dying, abusive father—and yet they manage to prevail through quiet and sometimes surprising acts of defiance. Okparantas prose is elegant and precise, fueled by a strong undercurrent of rage that surfaces at unexpected moments. Happiness, Like Water is a deeply affecting literary debut, the work of a sure and gifted new writer."

—Julie Otsuka, author of National Bestseller and National Book Award Finalist The Buddha in the Attic

"Without bluster, Chinelo Okparanta writes stories that are brave and devastating."

—Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist

“One of the most important, graceful, and honest writers ever to come into print . . .

This is a powerful, big, even a wild book.”—JUNE JORDAN, a u t h o r o f KISSING GOD GOODBYE

A debut story collection of Nigerian women building lives out of longing and hope, faith and doubt,  the struggle to stay and the mandate to leave, the burden and strength of love

A Mariner Original Paperback

In Happiness, Like Water Chinelo Okparanta offers a portrait of Nigeria that is surprising, shocking, heartrending, loving. As Daniyal Mueenuddin brought us everyday Pakistan with In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, so Okparanta brings us life across social strata, dealing in every kind of change.

Among her characters are a young woman faced with a dangerous decision to save her mother, children slick with oil from the river, a woman in love with another despite the penalties. Their world is marked by electricity outages, lush landscapes, folktales, littered roads, Land Rovers, buses that break down and never start up again. They fight their mothers and their husbands, their own shame and their own sexuality, the power of religion and the pull of love.

These are startling, challenging stories filled with language to make your eyes pause and your throat catch. Happiness, Like Water introduces an astonishing talent, a young writer with a beautiful heart and a capacious imagination.

of Walkers power to depict black women—women who vary

greatly in background yet are bound together by what they share in

common.Taken as a whole, their stories form an enlightening,

disturbing view of life in the South.

Chinelo Okparanta was born in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria, and was raised there as a Jehovah's Witness. When she was ten, her family relocated to the United States. She received her BS from The Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers University, and her MFA from the University of Iowa. She has worked as a middle and high school French and English Language teacher, and an undergraduate writing teacher. She is one of Granta's six New Voices for 2012 and has stories forthcoming from Conjunctions, Subtropics, and elsewhere. Her story "America" was short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing.

Wahala! 21

Fairness 35

Story, Story! 47

Runs Girl 67

America 85

Shelter 109

Grace 123

Designs 153

Tumours and Butterflies 169

Acknowledgements 199