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Under the Udala Trees

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Under the Udala Trees

By: Chinelo Okparanta
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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About this listen

Inspired by Nigeria's folktales and 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 11 when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child, and the star-crossed pair 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 wrecked and lost from taboo and prejudice. But this story offers a glimmer of hope - a future where a woman might just be able to shape her life around truth and love.

©2015 Chinelo Okparanta (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Women's Fiction World Literature War Africa
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I had to take a couple breaks, as the treatment of LGBTQA people is upsetting, but it's a lovely story. well performed, merging languages and mythologies

heart breaking and beautiful

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An evocative narration of this sad, poignant story. An insight into the contemporary struggles of the Nigerian LGBTQIA+ community. Great book

Sad, poignant and beautifully told

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