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Keith Mosman: Five Book Friday: Fearless New Collections from Asian American Poets (0 comment)
As Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month draws to a close, I wanted to highlight some of the recent books of poetry that have so impressed me. Here are five poets who have written collections that are each rich, wise, and fearless...
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Under the Udala Trees

by Chinelo Okparanta
Under the Udala Trees

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ISBN13: 9780544003446
ISBN10: 0544003446



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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Inspired by Nigeria’s folktales and its war, Under the Udala Trees is a deeply searching, powerful debut about the dangers of living and loving openly.

Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls.

When their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself. But there is a cost to living inside a lie.

As Edwidge Danticat has made personal the legacy of Haiti’s political coming of age, Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees uses one woman’s lifetime to examine the ways in which Nigerians continue to struggle toward selfhood. Even as their nation contends with and recovers from the effects of war and division, Nigerian lives are also wrecked and lost from taboo and prejudice. This story offers a glimmer of hope — a future where a woman might just be able to shape her life around truth and love.

Acclaimed by Vogue, the Financial Times, and many others, Chinelo Okparanta continues to distill “experience into something crystalline, stark but lustrous” (New York Times Book Review). Under the Udala Trees marks the further rise of a star whose “tales will break your heart open” (New York Daily News).

Review

"Okparanta [is] a graceful and precise writer." New York Times Book Review

Review

"I have never seen or read anything quite like Under the Udala Trees. Debut novelist Chinelo Okparanta (remember that name) blends traditional storytelling with a knockout plot." Essence

Review

"Okparanta dexterously layers her story with historical events and Nigerian folktales to give a fuller picture of both the beauty and conflict of the country and its cultures...[she] manages to leave readers hopeful for a better future through love and courage." Shelf Awareness, starred review

About the Author

One of Granta’s six New Voices for 2012, Chinelo Okparanta grew up a Jehovah’s Witness. She lived in Nigeria until the age of ten, when her family came to the United States. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has also taught middle school, high school, and college.

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Ryan DeJonghe , September 18, 2015 (view all comments by Ryan DeJonghe)
“E’li, E’li, la’ma sab ach tha’ni? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is the question Ijeoma asks in the novel UNDER THE UDALA TREES by Chinelo Okparanta. The year was 1968. Her father was killed in Nigeria’s violent assimilation of Biafra, her mother - at the end of her wits. Tears will fall from your eyes as Ijeoma prays, “Dear God, I want to be happy. Please help me to be happy.” THE MOTHER, THE HUSBAND, THE CHILD Not knowing what to do, Ijeoma’s mother sent her away, to be properly cared for and taught. During this separation, Ijeoma fell in love with another girl. This girl: a Hausa girl, someone Ijeoma’s Igbo people would never associate. This girl: a reader of the Koran. All things: an anathema. We witness Ijeoma’s struggle in finding love, eventually succumbing to the heart-wrenching persuasion of man-woman marriage. The pages are near-impossible to read as the husband struggles to find his love; the pages even more difficult once Ijeoma’s child Chidinma is born. LGBTQ IN 1970 NIGERIA Punishable by death - stoning - still today in the northern states of Nigeria: loving someone of the same sex. “There’s nothing more important now than for us to begin working on cleansing your soul,” says Ijeoma’s mother. “Nwoke na nwunye. Adam na Eve. Man and wife.” Ijeoma feels of her mother: “In this moment, she felt more like another warden than my own mother, more like a husk - more an emblem of motherhood than motherhood itself.” It’s not just about a love between two girls: it is about love. “Maybe love was some combination of friendship and infatuation. A deeply felt affection accompanied by a certain sort of awe. And by gratitude. And by a desire for a lifetime of togetherness.” Two men found naked: beaten to death. A woman: burned alive. “If you set off on a witch-hunt, you will find a witch.” GOD IS WITH US Author Chinelo Okparanta expertly mixes in her vast knowledge of the Bible, verses all included, as she tells the story of struggle and of love. The mother, Ijeoma, the people all around, each coming to a realization of who God is, where He abides, and the trueness of their hearts. BACK TO NIGERIA This is the third book I’ve read that is based in Nigeria. The latest being the multi-award-nominated THE FISHERMEN. I am honored and humbled to be back in Nigeria. Okparanta’s pictures are clear and beautiful. She has a way of relaying the old folk tales that make you a witness to the grandness and simplicity of Nigeria’s finest and scariest elements. It’s mesmerizing. “The saying goes that wood already touched by fire isn’t hard to set alight.” Aside from the tales are the sayings, each with special, driven-deep meaning. One after another, they sink into your soul. A GIFTED AUTHOR Okparanta is another gifted author to arise out of the Iowa’s Writing Workshop. Her craftsmanship is evident in her spare and lyrical prose. The short chapters tempt you to flip from one page to the next. The story and the elements all play together, scratching your mind and tearing your heart. “Sometimes it is hard to know to whom the tragedy really belongs.” UNDER THE UDALA TREES will cause me to ponder this question a long, long time.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780544003446
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
09/22/2015
Publisher:
Houghton Mifflin
Pages:
328
Height:
8.75
Width:
6.00
Thickness:
1.25
Author:
Chinelo Okparanta
Subject:
Literature-A to Z

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