“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.”
Chinelo Okparanta, Under the Udala Trees
We meet 11-year old Ijeoma amid Nigeria’s civil war, and following her father’s suicide, she is sent to live with family friends. It is here that Ijeoma meets Amina, a girl from a different ethnic tribe, with whom she falls in love. With extreme pressure from her very religious mother, Ijeoma is forced apart from Amina and is pushed towards getting married to a man and having children.
Okparanta is a talented story-teller which is shown through this coming-of-age novel in how she handles the passing of time through this book, with the reader not always knowing or understanding events until later on in the book. Although there is no shortage of horrific times within the book, the language is blunt and matter-of-fact, perhaps conveying the normalisation of such violence, but also protecting the reader from the details.
Under the Udala Trees also has homophobia as a central theme to this book, with her own mother and other adults in Ijeoma’s life using religion to denounce the LGBTQ+ community. This is particularly painful to read, as we are faced with relating to Ijeoma and being proud of her for knowing who she is, as well as her quick wit in debating key anti-LGBTQ+ points in her Bible study with her mother. However, to a certain extent we also sympathise with Ijeoma’s mother, who does not and cannot understand how Ijeoma feels, and wants to protect her- even if she ends up causing her harm.
Crucially, Okparanta’s note at the end of the book makes reference to the 2014 Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act and she says how through this novel she “attempts to give Nigeria’s marginalised LGBTQ citizens a more powerful voice, and a place in our nation’s history“. This hit me like a punch in the gut because although we have reached the end of the story for Ijeoma, many LGBTQ+ people in Nigeria still face imprisonment or even death. I am immensely grateful to Okparanta for bringing awareness to this vital issue and for providing a voice for so many LGBTQ+ people in Nigeria.
Read While It Rains is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This page contains links to Amazon in return for a small commission. Please consider using these links when purchasing on Amazon, it would really help me out!
readwhileitrains.home.blog 