Chinelo Okparanta

"Disarmingly funny." - The New York TimesFrom the award-winning author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water comes a brilliant, provocative, up-to-the-minute satirical novel about a young white man's education and miseducation in contemporary America.Harry Sylvester Bird grows up in Edward, Pennsylvania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevy, whom he greatly dislikes. They're racist, xenophobic, financially incompetent, and they have quite a few secrets of their own. To Harry, they represent everything wrong with this country. And his small town isn't any better. He witnesses racial profiling, graffitied swastikas, and White Power signs on his walk home from school. He can't wait until he's old enough to leave. When he finally is, he moves straight to New York City, where he feels he can finally live out his true inner self.In the city, he meets and falls in love with Maryam, a young Nigerian woman. But when Maryam begins to pull away, Harry is forced to confront his identity as he never has before--if he can.Brilliant, funny, original, and unflinching, Harry Sylvester Bird is a satire that speaks to all the most pressing tensions and anxieties of our time--and of the history that has shaped us and might continue to do so.

'Mesmerizing storytelling... Under the Udala Trees is breathtaking, rich with history and heart' Tayari Jones One day in 1968, at the height of the Biafran civil war, Ijeoma's father is killed and her world is transformed forever. Separated from her grief-stricken mother, she meets another young lost girl, Amina, and the two become inseparable. Theirs is a relationship that will shake the foundations of Ijeoma's faith, test her resolve and flood her heart. From Ijeoma's childhood in war-torn Biafra and through the perils and pleasures of her blossoming sexuality, Okparanta takes us on a journey through thwarted hopes and wrong turns and into the everyday joys and sorrows of marriage and motherhood. A triumphant love story, Under the Udala Tree is work of extraordinary beauty that will enrich your heart. 'Under the Udala Trees [recalls] the work of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in its powerful interweaving of the personal and the political... the dizzying scope of her storytelling keeps you gripped' Financial Times

Vinner av Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction En New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice En av NPRs «Best Books of 2015» Den nigerianske borgerkrigen, også kjent som Biafrakrigen, danner bakteppet for denne oppvekstskildringen og får direkte konsekvenser for skjebnen til hovedpersonen, Ijeoma, idet faren hennes blir drept. Ijeomas mor sørger slik over tapet at hun sender datteren bort til slektninger. Der møter hun den unge Amina, som hun forelsker seg i. Men den forbudte kjærligheten mellom de to jentene blir oppdaget og herfra leder en rekke rystende begiven.heter frem til Ijeomas beslutning om å gifte seg med barndomskameraten Chibundu. De to lever et ulykkelig liv sammen og etter hvert blir det tydeligere og tydeligere for Ijeoma hvilke valg hun må ta. Under udalatrærne er en fortelling om en ung jente som blir forsøkt tvunget inn i konformitet og et tradisjonelt familiemønster, men som likevel ender med å ta sine egne valg - koste hva det koste vil. Dette er en historie om håp og anner.ledeshet, om tro og om hvordan tilfeldigheter kan lede til det beste i livet. «Okparanta er en mester i å beskrive hvordan presset fra den endeløse volden hennes karakterer gjennomlever påvirker deres indre.» Kirkus Review «Gripende ... Okparanta balanserer elegant mellom en krigshistorie og en kjærlighetshistorie» The Guardian

"If you've ever wondered if love can conquer all, read this] stunning coming-of-age debut." -- Marie Claire A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR * BuzzFeed * Bustle * Shelf Awareness * Publishers Lunch " This] love story has hypnotic power."--The New Yorker 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. But when their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself--and there is a cost to living inside a lie. Inspired by Nigeria's folktales and its war, Chinelo Okparanta shows us, in "graceful and precise" prose (New York Times Book Review), how the struggles and divisions of a nation are inscribed on the souls of its citizens. "Powerful and heartbreaking, Under the Udala Trees is a deeply moving commentary on identity, prejudice, and forbidden love" (BuzzFeed). "An important and timely read, imbued with both political ferocity and mythic beauty." -- Bustle "A real talent. Under the Udala Trees is] the kind of book that should have come with a cold compress kit. It's sad and sensual and full of heat." -- John Freeman, Electric Literature "Demands not just to be read, but felt." -- Edwidge Danticat

Inspired by Nigeria's folktales and 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 the star-crossed pair 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 wrecked and lost from taboo and prejudice. But this story offers a glimmer of hope--a future where a woman might just be able to shape her life around truth and love.

A triumphant collection of stories centered on Nigerian women as they build lives out of love and longing, the struggle to stay and the mandate to leave, by an award-winning writer who &#8220is a certainly a voice to watch, and clearly deserves a place on any bookshelf beside fellow Nigerian authors Achebe and Adichie" (Bustle). What does happiness look like for the women in this acclaimed debut collection? Here is a cast of characters, in their Nigerian homeland and abroad, who whose world is marked by lush landscapes, historical legend and lively folktales, and the search for identity at all costs. You'll meet mothers who will go to the ends of the earth for their children and daughters who will love whomever they want--even if that means risking everything, even their own lives. Spanning generations, transcending social strata, and crossing the boundaries between duty and desire, the stories in this collection are rendered with &#8220such strength and intimacy, such lucidity and composure, that in each and every case the truths of their lives detonate deep inside the reader's heart, with the power and force of revelation" (Paul Harding). &#8220The work of a sure and gifted new writer."--Julie Otsuka