Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

According to a 2012 Win-Gallup International Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism, Nigeria ranks as the second-most-religious country surveyed, following very closely behind Ghana.

Many thanks to:

My classmates at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and my professors: Paul Harding, Marilynne Robinson, James Alan McPherson, Lan Samantha Chang, Allan Gurganus, and Ethan Canin.

Connie Brothers, Deb West, and Janice Zenisek at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Michael Martone and Robin Hemley at the Overseas Writers’ Workshop.

Lisa Zeidner and the English/creative writing faculty and staff at Rutgers University, Camden.

Daniel Grow, Linda Barton, Charlotte Holmes, and Aimee LaBrie at the Pennsylvania State University.

Greg Ames, Peter Balakian, Jennifer Brice, Jane Pinchin, and Tess Jones at Colgate University.

The creative writing faculty at Purdue University, especially Porter Shreve and Bich Minh Nguyen.

The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

The editors at: AGNI, Apogee, Coffin Factory, Conjunctions, Granta , the Iowa Review , the Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, Prospect , the Southern Review, Subtropics (special thanks to David Leavitt), Tin House , and TriQuarterly .

Christopher Merrill, Nataša Durovicová, Kelly Bedeian, and Ashley Davidson at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.

The O. Henry Prize Stories.

Lambda Literary and the Astraea Foundation for Justice.

The Caine Prize, for its tremendous support of African writing, especially Lizzy Attree and Jenny Casswell.

Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, especially Jill Morrison, Michael Ondaatje, Miro Penkov, Neal Hovelmeier, and Togara Muzanenhamo.

Congregational United Church of Christ, Iowa City, especially Reverend William Lovin.

Chika Unigwe, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Uwem Akpan, Chimamanda Adichie, Maaza Mengiste, Tayari Jones, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Rita Adedamola Mogaji.

Rae Winkelstein, Montreux Rotholtz, Emily Ruskovich, Naomi Jackson, Christa Fraser, Amanda Briggs, Bryan Castille, and Lori Baker Martin.

Marc Benda.

Mrs. Brenda Nickles.

Granta , especially John Freeman, Patrick Ryan, Ellah Allfrey, Yuka Igarashi, Ted Hodgkinson, Rachael Allen, Sara D’Arcy, and Anne Meadows.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, especially Jenna Johnson, Nina Barnett, Summer Smith, Simmi Aujla, Chelsea Newbould, and Larry Cooper.

The Wylie Agency, especially my superb agent, Jin Auh, as well as Tracy Bohan and Jessica Friedman.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”).

“Things congealed by cold shall be melted by heat.” Creech’s Lucretius, in The Works of the British Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical , Vol. 13 (London, 1795), p. 663.

The BBC and its documentaries on the Nigeria-Biafra War.

Yakubu Gowon, “The Dawn of National Reconciliation,” broadcast from Lagos on January 15, 1970.

The works of Flora Nwapa, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Edwidge Danticat, Alice Munro, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, and Marilynne Robinson — my predecessors, my guiding lights.

And Jackie Kay’s “Road to Amaudo,” where I first read the saying “ Ka udo di, ka ndu di. ”

My most heartfelt thanks and love to:

Chidinma Okparanta, Chinenye Okparanta, and Chibueze Okparanta, my siblings, my best friends.

Constance Okparanta, for her strength, for her love, for her war songs and war stories, for her folktales, without all of which this book might not exist.

Aunty Ifeyinwa, you are always in my heart.

All our elders, for the proverbs that carry on to this day.

Last but not least, God and the Universe, for conspiring together to make this book the assured expectation of things hoped for, and the evident demonstration of realities, though not beheld.

Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, CHINELO OKPARANTA is the author of the award-winning story collection Happiness, Like Water . Her honors include an O. Henry Prize, a Lamda Literary Award, and finalist selections for the Young Lions, the Caine Prize, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Her stories have appeared in Granta, The New Yorker , and Tin House , among other publications. She lives in New York.

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