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Under the Udala Trees

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A 2017 Granta's Best of Young American NovelistFinalist for the 2017 International Dublin Literary PrizeOne of NPR's Best Books of 2015A 2016 Lambda Award Winner Long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Nominated for the 2015 NAACP Image Awards (Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction)
Nominated for the 2015 Nigerian Writers Awards (Young Motivational Writer of the
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

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).

About the Author

Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, CHINELO OKPARANTA is the author of Happiness, Like Water. Her honors include an O. Henry Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and finalist selections for the Young Lions, the Caine Prize, and the Rolex Mentors and Protégés Arts Initiative.

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction Winner of the 2016 Jessie Redmon Fauset Book Awards--Fiction Nominated for the NAACP Image Awards, "Outstanding Literary Work--Fiction" Nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, Fiction Short-listed for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction Long-listed for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Long-listed for the 2016 Chautauqua Prize Semifinalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice One of NPR's "Best Books of 2015" One of Buzzfeed's "The 24 Best Fiction Books of 2015" One of Bustle's "2015's 25 Best Books, Fiction Edition" Included on the Los Angeles Times's "Holiday Books Roundup" One of the Wall Street Journal's "15 Books to Read This Fall" One of Buzzfeed's "19 New Books You Need to Read This Fall" One of Bustle's "Best Books of September 2015" A Shelf Awareness "Best Book of 2015" One of the Sun Herald's "Ten noteworthy fiction and nonfiction titles on the way" One of Gawker's "9 Must-Reads" for Fall One of Publishers Lunch's "Favorite Books of 2015, From the News Editor" One of Buzzfeed UK's "27 Brilliant Books You Must Read This Winter" "Incorporating Nigerian folktales, the author weaves a lush coming-of-age tale of forbidden love but also of strength and resilience... The vivid imagery of the bloody civil war and the stark Nigerian post-war landscape complements the sumptuous prose. This book has universal appeal."--Historical Novel Society "Under the Udala Trees is a gripping story of love, faith, and turmoil in post-civil war Nigeria. When Ijeoma falls in love with another girl, she must come to terms with who she is in a society that refuses to accept her. A heartbreaking and moving account of Ijeoma's coming-of-age, as well as the story of a country during a time of great disturbance, Under the Udala Trees will affect you deeply."--Buzzfeed, "The 24 Best Fiction Books of 2015" "Ijeoma is a young girl growing up in the difficult years following Nigeria's 1967 Biafran War. But coming of age in a war-torn country isn't her only challenge: She's also struggling to balance her taboo same-sex relationship with her mother's (and her society's) expectations. Chinelo Okparanta's writing is so immersive that even readers who have nothing in common with Ijeoma will feel like they've lived her experience. I couldn't put the book down and even pulled an all-nighter to finish it (then was a zombie at work the next day). Plan your schedule around this binge read!"--NPR, "Our Guide To 2015's Great Reads" "At the height of the Biafran war, two Nigerian girls fall in love. The romance is brief, but for Ijeoma, the narrator of this début novel, it is the beginning of years of pain...The love story has hypnotic power...Details of disco-era Nigeria--jerricans filled with palm wine, a suitor in bell-bottom trousers--suggest Okparanta's skill and promise."--The New Yorker, "Briefly Noted" "One of the most talked about debuts this fall."--The Wall Street Journal, "15 Books to Read This Fall" "[Okparanta] is a natural --

Publisher: Mariner Books
Pub date:
Length:
336 pages
Format: Paperback