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Under the Udala Trees

Chinelo Okparanta (Goodreads Author)

3.97 · Rating details · 6,103 ratings · 889 reviews

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 ...more

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Hardcover, 328 pages

Published September 22nd 2015 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published September 3rd 2015)

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Jul 13, 2018 J.L. Sutton rated it it was amazing

Wow! Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees is amazing! Amid the political upheaval of Nigeria’s civil war and after her father’s death, 11-year old Ijeoma is sent to live with family friends. There she befriends and eventually falls in love with a girl from a different ethnic tribe. In a country with some of the strictest laws against homosexuality, there is virtually no acceptance of such a relationship. When Ijeoma’s relationship is discovered, her mother reclaims her and pressures her to ...more

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Aug 18, 2015 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netgalley

This debut novel will reach deep into your heart and mind.... a story which stays forever!

Ijeoma is only 11 years old when her father dies.
As a young child, when one parent dies, ( I know this from experience), they often feel as though they've lost both parents.
Everything changes instantly and dramatically. This happened to Ijeoma.
She and her mother loose their living comforts...from their upper class,
( more elite) home to being rather poor. The entire country is hurting as the Civil
War ...more

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Nov 02, 2016 Maxwell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own-it, 2016

4.5 stars This was a nearly perfect novel. It has what I would call a quiet power to it. Okparanta has created something special here, something that's moving and resilient and important. It's the story of conflict and reconciliation, of a nation at war with itself, of a mother and daughter at war with each other, and ultimately of a girl at war with her identity and how she comes to acceptance. It's beautifully written and told, and I can't wait to read more from this author. Only small ...more

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Dec 25, 2015 Monica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: aoc-female, aoc, 5-star, betterthanexpected, kindle_fiction, pub_2010s, female-author-fic, worldwide

What an amazing book!! Deeply personal and thoughtful!! A beautiful story, beautifully told. I was not expecting to be so captivated. I think what got me was the humanness of it all. The world building was superb. I knew I was reading about another country entirely with different culture etc and yet I connected with Ijeoma. I understood her points of view and shared many of her perceptions. The first half of the book with the religious dogma was interesting to me, but I was completely detached. What an amazing book!! Deeply personal and thoughtful!! A beautiful story, beautifully told. I was not expecting to be so captivated. I think what got me was the humanness of it all. The world building was superb. I knew I was reading about another country entirely with different culture etc and yet I connected with Ijeoma. I understood her points of view and shared many of her perceptions. The first half of the book with the religious dogma was interesting to me, but I was completely detached. The moment someone starts to explain their questionable behavior or point of view by telling me what the bible says; it’s just like flipping an off switch. I’m not listening. But Ijeoma comes from a background where the bible gave her family hope. It was the very foundation of their lives. She not only has internal conflicts with biological imperatives, but with the very foundations of what her parents have laid out for her. Interestingly enough, I found commonality in the second half of the book regardless of sexual preference. The desire to carve out a life that is meaningful and comfortable and pleasant. Finding your way through life is difficult on its own, even more so if you are gay and living in a very ignorant and intolerant country. But Ijeoma’s basic struggle was the same as everyone else; finding herself and figuring out a way to carve out a happy life. I have a heterosexual friend right now staring at a marriage to a person that is amiable and kind but there is no love. The hope is for a comfortable life with someone who is acceptable to the family. Love and intimacy are sacrificed to the idea of what is a societal norm. They wish and hope and pray that those things will grow with time. Ijeoma says it herself when she says

“There’s a way in which life takes us along for a ride and we begin to think that our destinies are not in fact up to us.”

One of the most self-destructive, almost universally applied axioms/antidotes/cure all/solutions to life’s issues is the notion of “give it time” or "give it a chance". It wasn’t until Ijeoma gave everything she had to make things work within the conventional norms that her mother finally accepted who Ijeoma was. But there was a tremendous amount of suffering and destruction in a lot of lives before her mother came around. Isn’t that part of what is goes on in everyone’s life at some point? We spend a tremendous amount of effort trying to conform to societal norms often leaving a destructive wake while denying our true selves. Trying to be what someone else expects. It was gratifying that her mother came around in the end. It was gratifying that Ijeoma is living her truth now. She still has to hide herself from society, but at least she doesn’t have to hide from her mother. In spite of her mother’s initial reservations and behavior, she was Ijeoma’s rock in life and her support. I believe that her mother did love her and wanted what’s best for her. She never outright rejected her daughter. That Ijeoma at the end of her marriage went back to her mother’s house and said

“Mama, I can’t, I can’t anymore.”

says this to me. She had a place to go. Her mother didn’t abandon her. I came to love her mother. She was doing the best she knew how to do and in the end she chose her daughter over everything including religious teachings. And through everything, Ijeoma still managed to stay true to herself and to retain her faith. Her mother’s last line says it all

“Ka udo di, ka ndu di.” Let peace be, let life be.

...more

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Oct 31, 2017 Hugh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-lit, read-2017

A beautifully crafted tale of forbidden love, mostly set during and immediately after the Biafran war, but inspired by Nigeria's recent decision to outlaw homosexual acts.

Ijeoma is an Igbo girl from a middle class family whose world is shaken when her father is killed by a bomb, and her mother is forced to send her out to be a servant girl while she finds a place to survive. Here she meets Amina, a Hausa orphan, and persuades her employers to take her in. They start a lesbian relationship, but ...more

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Jun 13, 2017 Jennifer rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, africa, 2017-books

“With a man, life is difficult. Without a man, life is even more difficult. Take it from me."

Like many artists before her, author Chinelo Okparanta took to her craft as a way to address oppressive governmental policies. In 2014, the year before this book was written Okparanta's native Nigeria passed some of the most stringent laws in the world against homosexuality. Those found to be "guilty" of homosexuality could be sentenced to decades in prison or death by stoning.

Okparata's beautiful and ...more

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Aug 24, 2015 Jill rated it really liked it

It is impossible for me to review this book without first addressing the “why” of its genesis. Just last year, Nigeria – the birthplace of Chinelo Okparanta – passed one of the world’s most punitive laws against same-sex relationships, including lengthy prison sentences and in the northern states, death by stoning. As someone who strongly believes that healthy and reciprocal love between two people – regardless of gender – is always a good thing, I can’t help but applaud this young author for It is impossible for me to review this book without first addressing the “why” of its genesis. Just last year, Nigeria – the birthplace of Chinelo Okparanta – passed one of the world’s most punitive laws against same-sex relationships, including lengthy prison sentences and in the northern states, death by stoning. As someone who strongly believes that healthy and reciprocal love between two people – regardless of gender – is always a good thing, I can’t help but applaud this young author for providing a voice for so many in Nigeria who are forced to deny their authentic selves.

That being said, I typically default in reacting to a book not to its worthy themes, but how it succeeds in advancing those themes. And here, I must admit to some disappointment.

Having read Happiness Like Water, I know what heights Chinelo Okparanta is capable of reaching. In that collection, she writes devastatingly about women and children seeking shelter from abusive husbands, gay lovers who must forego love because one is acquiescing to an arranged marriage, and other traumas. It was – and remains – a fine debut.

In Under the Udala Trees, Ms. Okparanta states that her novel is attempting to “give Nigeria’s marginalized LGBTQ citizens a more powerful voice, and a place in our nation’s history.” The book is, at its core, a coming-of-age story in which the narrator --Ijeoma – is sent to live with friends of the family during wartime. Her sexual and emotional awakening at the hands of another displaced girl, Amina, sets in motion a long struggle for self-acceptance.

Ms. Okparanta writes beautifully, lucidly, and at times, devastatingly; at no point did I want to abandon the book. In fact, once I started reading, I eagerly turned pages. But I couldn’t help but feel as if she were leading me to conclusions, rather than let me reach them on my own. Nigeria is the second-most religious nation in the world; the author writes, “It’s the Church that has interpreted God’s words to its own benefit…My point is that business is the reason for things like doctrines. Business is the reason for words like ‘abomination’.”

No argument there. But somehow, I wanted Ms. Okparanta to go further than what has now become the sad givens: the hypocrisy and perniciousness of religion, the valuing of male children above female children, the forcing of loving people to deny their own realities in order to conform and to enter into false marriages. In ways, I felt this novel could easily be classified as young-adult fiction (and, for the record, there’s nothing wrong with that. My belief is that To Kill A Mockingbird, one of the classics of American fiction, is also YA). For me – and this is entirely subjective – I wanted more thematic surprises.
...more

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Nov 09, 2015 Lark Benobi rated it really liked it

Shelves: nigeria, africa, 2015

Under the Udala Trees is restrained compared with almost any other novel I've ever read about a child growing up in time of war. There are terrible things happening throughout the novel, but somewhat obliquely. After reading many memoirs and novels that have no such restraint I kept being surprised when this main character was never raped or maimed or burned at the stake, all things that the author could have chosen to have happen to her protagonist.

The language here is simple and ...more

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Sep 19, 2015 Jane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This book was amazing and EVERYONE should read it!

I had Americanah-like chills while reading this. It dealt with so many serious feminist issues, particularly the role of religion and the condemnation of homosexuality. Ijeoma's thoughts and opinions on religion have been buzzing around my own mind lately so it was especially cathartic to read. There's nothing better than an incredibly well-written book that tackles very serious human issues.

I will definitely be reading anything and everything ...more

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Apr 12, 2017 Adam Dalva rated it liked it

Addictive, quick novel that takes on the horrendous homophobic conditions in Nigeria with a decades-spanning narrative. Okparanta is a writer of great restraint, comfortable with quick, punchy scenes and large time jumps, and her plot-work is excellent. You find yourself caring about the lead, her two forbidden affairs with men, and her marriage to a man who she can not possibly love. The husband is a particularly well-mapped character - in a different book, in a different story, his narrative ...more

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Apr 30, 2015 Althea Ann rated it really liked it

I was inspired to pick this up by the blurb claiming that it was "inspired by Nigeria's folktales." Well, that's not quite true. Certainly, the characters are all Nigerian, and there are a few traditional tales told, over the course of the book - but the story itself is clearly based on true events, not on folktales.

I was actually nearly convinced that this was a memoir, it rings so true. It's not, but the author has stated that some details are based on her mother's experiences in Nigeria. It ...more

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Mar 12, 2015 Beverly rated it really liked it

Shelves: africa, cross-cultural, netgalley, nigeria

Poignant and emotionally rich this story captured my attention and heart in many unexpected ways. The author’s storytelling abilities are showcased as she seamlessly weaves together the coming-of-age stories of Nigeria and the main character, Ijeoma. This technique effectively put me into a specific time and place and yet is universally appealing. Ijeoma’s young world is shattered as the civil war kills her father, and her mother sends her away to a safer place. In this new place Ijeoma, an Igbo ...more

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Sep 22, 2015 jo rated it really liked it

Shelves: africa, queer, audio

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. i am not sure what the biafra war is doing in this book.
i am not sure what the death of a beloved parent who can no longer fight for survival is doing in this book.
i am not sure what a mother's breakdown and subsequent abandonment are doing in this book.
i am not sure what a child's servitude is doing in this book.

once you are done, once you get to the end, this feels very much like a book about being a young gay girl and a gay woman, but there are all these other things too. they are woven ...more

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Sep 24, 2016 Emer (A Little Haze) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: cried-me-a-river, reviewed, challenge-atoz2018, challenge-christmas2017, adult-fiction, 3stars, owned-physical-books, read2018

"If you set off on a witch-hunt, you will find a witch.
When you find her, she will be dressed like any other person. But to you, her skin will glow in stripes of white and black. You will see her broom, and you will hear her witch-cry, and you will feel the effects of her spells on you.
No matter how unlike a witch she is, there she will be, a witch, before your eyes."

Beautifully heartfelt and poignant story about a young girl growing up in Nigeria and repercussions of what happens when she ...more

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Oct 04, 2015 Yanira rated it it was amazing

I was in a funk when I picked up this book. I am very particular with what I read and I could not find something to read where I felt invested. This book changed that, because it is the type of book that stays with you for a long time. It is the type of book that begs to be read twice, the type of book you tell your friends about. It is beautiful in language and the sentences read like music lyrics.

A must read. I heard in an interview that she has received threats due to the subject of the ...more

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Nov 19, 2016 Robert rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A great coming of age novel, which takes place during the biafran war. In a word: poignant.

*update*

The reason why this review is so brief is because it was written on my mobile, on a boat with limited bandwidth.

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Mar 12, 2016 Ace rated it really liked it

Beautifully written and narrated love story. More thoughts when I stop crying...

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Nov 27, 2019 Lisa rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook

[3.5] Under the Udala Trees is a coming of age story about a girl/woman who is struggling to be herself in a virulently homophobic Nigeria - from the late 60s to present. Much of the novel consists of pages of Ijeoma's numbing routine, but there are enough moving and eye opening moments to make this well worth reading.

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Jun 29, 2019 Alex rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019, africa

In case you haven’t read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie, and why haven’t you, that book is amazing, but don’t worry! I will tell you all about the Biafran War in five seconds. In the late 60s the Igbo people secede from Nigeria. Genocide follows: the Yoruba people, heavily abetted by the British, surround the new Biafran state and starve millions of its residents to death.

Under the Udala Trees begins right in the middle of it, as our hero Ijeoma’s father commits suicide by sitting In case you haven’t read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie, and why haven’t you, that book is amazing, but don’t worry! I will tell you all about the Biafran War in five seconds. In the late 60s the Igbo people secede from Nigeria. Genocide follows: the Yoruba people, heavily abetted by the British, surround the new Biafran state and starve millions of its residents to death.

Under the Udala Trees begins right in the middle of it, as our hero Ijeoma’s father commits suicide by sitting still in their living room during a bombing run. Her mother loses her shit and sends her off to live with family friends, in a devastating passage about what it feels like to be abandoned by your only surviving parent. And there, in her abandoned life as the indentured servant to strangers, is where we find out what the book’s really about: Ijeoma is gay.

If all this sounds like a lot, it is! This book is about a lot! Ijeoma’s first lover, Amina, is a Hausa - Muslims who sided with the Yoruba against the Christian Igbos - so we have that whole thing too. Ijeoma’s mother tries to fight her gayness by reading her all the creepiest passages from the Bible, like that thing from Judges 19 where the guy offers his girlfriend to be gang raped instead of himself, and then after she gets gang raped he chops her up. Her mom is like, see? Being gay is gross. And she’s like...that’s the gross part? There’s a lot of wrestling with God here, which invites comparisons to James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain.

Meanwhile, as you can imagine, she gets zero percent less gay, as one doesn’t. She finds love and loses it. She avoids “all those men shouting out their love as if tossing loose change into a beggars can” for as long as she can. In the last third or so she gets (view spoiler) almost unbearable.

The book itself is gripping and smart. I loved getting Okparanta’s perspective: unique in many ways, for me, but universal in others. We have different wars in our pasts, but the same ass-headed parents.
...more

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Jul 31, 2015 Yannick Serres rated it it was amazing

This book will get you through a flow of emotions.

Story of a young Nigerian girl living with the fact that she has to marry a man she doesn’t love, because it’s not right to be with a woman. Oppressed by her mother and the bible to not make another mistake regarding the person she makes love with, Ijeoma will be ‘forced’ to marry a young man and to make kids for him. She leaves two women she loved for something that is supposed to be the right thing to do.

The story seems so real and you can feel ...more

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Sep 29, 2015 Alice Heiserman rated it it was amazing

This is the story of lesbian love in Nigeria but it is so much more. It evokes the folktales and the contrast between a Christian upbringing and the way of the heart in a young woman wh is forced to hide her love and lover due to the constraints of her family and society--including different ethnic tribes. The writing is exquisite and evocative. The style does not bog down in the rich descriptions of the country or the characters but pulls the reader along rooting for the main character, first ...more

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Apr 17, 2017 Paul Fulcher rated it liked it

Shelves: 2017, impac-shortlist-2017

By 1968, Nigeria was already winning and everything had already changed.

But there were to be more changes.

There is no way to tell the story of what happened with Amina without first telling the story of Mama's sending me off. Likewise there is no way to tell the story of Mama's sending me off without also telling of Papa's refusal to go to the bunker. Without his refusal, the sending away might never have occurred, and of the sending away had not occurred, them I might never have met Amina.

If ...more

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Aug 15, 2015 Natasha rated it it was amazing

Received as an ARC from the publisher.
Beautiful, but heart wrenching. Couldn't put this book down after the first half.

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Oct 10, 2017 Clif Hostetler rated it liked it

Shelves: novel

This novel tells the story of LGBTQ life in Nigeria. The location provides poignancy because, as elaborated in THIS LINK, the country does not allow or recognize LGBT rights, and violence against LGBT people is frequent. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Nigeria. The maximum punishment in the twelve northern states that have adopted Shari'a law is death by stoning. In southern Nigeria and under the secular criminal laws of northern Nigeria, the maximum punishment for This novel tells the story of LGBTQ life in Nigeria. The location provides poignancy because, as elaborated in THIS LINK, the country does not allow or recognize LGBT rights, and violence against LGBT people is frequent. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Nigeria. The maximum punishment in the twelve northern states that have adopted Shari'a law is death by stoning. In southern Nigeria and under the secular criminal laws of northern Nigeria, the maximum punishment for same-sex sexual activity is 14 years' imprisonment.

The book's narrative tells in first-person the experiences of a young girl, beginning with her coming of age during the Biafran War of the late 60s. Her father is killed and her mother is forced to send her to work as a servant in order to provide room and board for her daughter. After the war ends her schooling was able to begin, and she becomes increasingly aware of her feelings of same sex attraction. She participates is some same sex affairs and barely misses violent death by a vigilante group.

As the story progresses she is taught in no uncertain terms that homosexuality is the worst sort of sin, and consequently feels much guilt and fear of God's retribution. With strong encouragement from her mother she agrees to marry a young man. (view spoiler).

The novel’s epilogue mentions a “new generation of Nigerians with a stronger bent towards love than fear.” But, it also documents a brutal beating of a lesbian couple, and the author’s note reports on the 2014 laws criminalizing same-sex relationships with punishments. I hope this book contributes to awareness of the plight of the LGBTQ community in Nigeria.

The author was born in Nigeria so I believe her description of time and place in this novel are realistic. However, the author moved to the USA at age ten, and she appears to be too young to have experienced the Biafran War. I'm guessing that parts of the story may be biographical of her parent's generation. ...more

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Apr 04, 2019 Ana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, 2015-releases, own-and-read, read-in-2019, lgbtqia

2019 READING WOMEN Challenge
Task #12. A Lambda Literary Award winner

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Jan 25, 2017 Viv JM rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: z-2017-author-female, rt-challenge-oct-16, fiction-historical, author-female, read-in-2017, audio

3.5 stars

I had high expectations of this book and, although I liked it, I didn't love it. It begins at the time of the Biafran war in Nigeria, and the protagonist, Ijeoma, is coming of age as a young lesbian in a deeply religious society that shuns homosexuality. We follow her in coming to terms with who she is, and there is a generally hopeful and optimistic vibe about the book (especially the ending), despite the difficulties Ijeoma encounters along the way, both in her own family and in ...more

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Jun 29, 2017 Jessica Woodbury rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, lgbtq, religion, historical-fiction, authors-of-color

This is a beautiful book and an important one. There is this idea I keep encountering among straight people that queer people have no more problems or complications in their lives. The whole world is still a dangerous place for queer people and this book is a good reminder, particularly its brutal reminder of Nigeria's current anti-gay laws.

This is a beautiful story but a hard one to read. If you are weary of books about queer suffering, you may want to wait until you feel you can manage it. ...more

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Sep 06, 2015 Naz (Read Diverse Books) rated it really liked it

Full review in my blog: http://wp.me/p7a9pe-5d

“Under the Udala Trees” beautifully and boldly lends its voice to Nigeria’s LGBT community, which is critically important if the country is ever going to make progress in LGBT rights.

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Sep 17, 2015 Chaitali Sen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This book is flawless.

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Sep 29, 2015 Candace White rated it it was amazing

Loved everything about this book! It was hard to put down!

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About Chinelo Okparanta

Chinelo Okparanta

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Chinelo Okparanta was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and relocated to the United States at the age of ten. She received her BS from The Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers University, and her MFA from the University of Iowa. She was one of Granta's six New Voices for 2012 and her stories have appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, Tin House, Subtropics, and elsewhere.