Under the Udala trees

by Chinelo Okparanta

• ISBN: 9781847088383
• SKU: 2030301005807

It is 1968, the height of the Nigerian civil war, when Ijeoma notices a young girl following her home. Her name is Amina and she is Hausa. Ijeoma is Igbo. Though they should be mortal enemies, the two girls swiftly fall into an irrevocable friendship: one that will shake the foundations of Ijeoma's faith, test her resolve and flood her heart. 

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). 

"If you've ever wondered if love can conquer all, read Ijeoma's story . . . A stunning coming-of-age debut."--Marie Claire

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 Year)

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.