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Chinelo Okparanta

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Chinelo Okparanta
Chinelo Okparanta 2015 LOC.jpg
Born1981 (age 41–42)
Port Harcourt, Nigeria
OccupationNovelist, short-story writer
NationalityNigeria; United States
Alma mater
Period2010s
Notable worksHappiness, Like Water (2013); Under the Udala Trees (2015)
Website
Official website

Chinelo Okparanta (listen) (born 1981) is a Nigerian-American novelist and short-story writer.[1] She was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where she was raised[2] until the age of 10, when she emigrated to the United States with her family.[3]

Discover more about Chinelo Okparanta related topics

Short story

Short story

A short story is a piece of prose fiction that can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century.

Port Harcourt

Port Harcourt

Port Harcourt is the capital and largest city in Rivers State, Nigeria. It is the fifth most populous city in Nigeria after Lagos, Kano, Ibadan and Benin. It lies along the Bonny River and is located in the Niger Delta. As of 2016, the Port Harcourt urban area had an estimated population of 1,865,000 inhabitants, up from 1,382,592 as of 2006. The population of the metropolitan area of Port Harcourt is almost twice its urban area population with a 2015 United Nations estimate of 2,344,000. In 1950, the population of Port Harcourt was 59,752. Port Harcourt has grown by 150,844 since 2015, which represents a 4.99% annual change. Historically it has been known as Obomuotu Country within which a few other smaller areas were called Diobu or Igweocha (city).

Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south in the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres (356,669 sq mi), and with a population of over 230 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the second-largest in Africa.

United States

United States

The United States of America, commonly known as the United States or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

Early life

Chinelo Okparanta was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and at the age of 10 migrated with her family to the US. She was educated at Pennsylvania State University (Schreyer Honors College), Rutgers University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.[2]

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Pennsylvania State University

Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became the state's only land-grant university in 1863. Its instructional mission includes undergraduate, graduate, professional and continuing education offered through resident instruction and online delivery.

Schreyer Honors College

Schreyer Honors College

The Schreyer Honors College is the honors program of the Pennsylvania State University. Founded in 1980 as the University Scholars Program, it was expanded and renamed in 1997 in response to a $30 million gift by William and Joan Schreyer. Schreyer was one of three honors colleges, along with those at Arizona State and Mississippi, to be listed by Reader's Digest in its "America's 100 Best" list published in May, 2005. On November 17, 2006, the Schreyers pledged an additional gift of $25 million to the Schreyer Honors College. Having contributed more than $58 million to Penn State, they were the largest family donors in the school's history, prior to the recent donation of $88 million from Terry and Kim Pegula for a new arena.

Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers University, officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey after Princeton University, and one of nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American Revolution.

Iowa Writers' Workshop

Iowa Writers' Workshop

The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Writing. It has been cited as the best graduate writing program in the nation, counting among its alumni 17 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Career

Okparanta has published short stories in publications including Granta,[4] The New Yorker, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, TriQuarterly, Conjunctions, Subtropics and The Coffin Factory. Her essays have appeared in AGNI, The Story Prize blog, and the University of Iowa, International Writing Program blog.[5] Okparanta has held fellowships or visiting professorships at The University of Iowa, Colgate University, Purdue University, City College of New York, and Columbia University.[6] She was associate professor of English & Creative Writing (Fiction) at Bucknell University, where she was also C. Graydon & Mary E. Rogers Faculty Research Fellow as well as Margaret Hollinshead Ley Professor in Poetry & Creative Writing until 2021. She is currently associate professor of English and Director of the Program in Creative Writing at Swarthmore College.[7]

Her debut short-story collection, Happiness, Like Water (Granta Books and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), was longlisted for the 2013 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award,[8] a finalist for the 2014 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award,[9] and won the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.[10] She has been nominated for a United States Artists Fellowship[11] and was a finalist for the 2014 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in Literature.[12] Other honors include the 2013 Society of Midland Authors Award (finalist),[13] the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing (finalist), and more.[14]

Her short story "Fairness" was 2014 included in The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among 20 short stories of this year.[15]

Happiness, Like Water was an Editors' Choice for The New York Times Book Review on September 20, 2013.[16] The collection was also listed as one of The Guardian's Best African Fiction of 2013,[17] and in December 2014 was announced as being a finalist for the Nigerian Etisalat Prize for Literature.[18][19]

Her first novel, Under the Udala Trees, was published in 2015. The New York Times reviewer called Okparanta "a graceful and precise writer",[20] and The Guardian (UK) describes the book as "a gripping novel about a young gay woman's coming of age in Nigeria during the Nigerian civil war..." in which "...Okparanta deftly negotiates a balance between a love story and a war story."[21]

Under the Udala Trees was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice[22] as well as a nominee for the 2015 Kirkus Reviews Prize in Fiction.[23] One of NPR's "Best Books of 2015", it also made the BuzzFeed, The Wall Street Journal, The Millions, Bustle, Shelf Awareness, and Publishers Lunch "Best of"[24] and "Most Anticipated" lists, among others. It was long-listed for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize,[25] nominated for the 2016 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction,[26] nominated for the 2016 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in Fiction,[27] a finalist for the 2016 Publishing Triangle Literary Awards (the Ferro-Grumley Award),[28] a semi-finalist for the 2016 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award,[29] long-listed for the 2016 Chautauqua Prize, and won the 2016 Lambda Literary Award in the General Lesbian Fiction category.[30]

Under the Udala Trees also won the 2016 Jessie Redmon Fauset Book Award in Fiction[31] and was a 2017 Amelia Bloomer Project Selection of the American Library Association.[32] It was also shortlisted for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award.[33]

In 2017, Okparanta won the Publishing Triangle's 2016 inaugural Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award.[34]

Pulse Nigeria named Under the Udala Trees one of its 10 Outstanding Nigerian Books for 2015.[35] YNaija listed it as one of its Ten Most Notable Books of 2015.[36] Afridiaspora listed it as one of the Best African Novels of 2015.[37]

In April 2017, Okparanta was selected by Granta for their once in a decade Best of Young American Novelists list.[38][39]

Her essay "Trump in the Classroom" is included in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[40]


Legacy

Chinelo Okparanta has been credited for being a champion for marginalized and underprivileged voices throughout her career by the novelist, Helon Habila.[41]

Okparanta’s three books, “Happiness Like Water,” “Under the Udala Tree,” and her most recent, “Harry Sylvester Bird” have championed the stories of LGBTQ community and people of color through local insider perspective and interracial outsider perspectives.

The most notable thing about Okparanta is that began writing about these demographics in the time when it was dangerous to do so especially from around Nigeria. Her courage in telling her story is a contrast from her gentle and retreating personality, hence in a profile on the Open Country Magazine by Paula Willie-Okafor, Okparanta was tagged, “The Gentle Defier.”

Zimbabwean Novelist, NoViolet Bulawayo considers Okparanta, “…a formidable force.” In her words, “She [Okparanta] doesn’t tell easy stories, she tells necessary, even earth-shifting ones—the initial reception of Under the Udala Trees is a good case of the impact of her work. We know a writer is actually doing their job right when they make people lose their shit. They are also doing an even more important job when they make others possible. In choosing to tell humanizing stories that defied the literary trends and silence around African queer life, Chinelo became an important part of the reason why we are today in a position to celebrate the flourishing of writing that rightly holds African queerness to the sun.”

Discover more about Career related topics

Granta

Granta

Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated: "In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world."

The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the cultural life of New York City, The New Yorker has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue.

The Kenyon Review

The Kenyon Review

The Kenyon Review is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. The Review was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. The Review has published early works by generations of important writers, including Robert Penn Warren, Ford Madox Ford, Robert Lowell, Delmore Schwartz, Flannery O'Connor, Boris Pasternak, Bertolt Brecht, Peter Taylor, Dylan Thomas, Anthony Hecht, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, Derek Walcott, Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo, Woody Allen, Louise Erdrich, William Empson, Linda Gregg, Mark Van Doren, Kenneth Burke, and Ha Jin.

Subtropics (journal)

Subtropics (journal)

Subtropics is an American literary journal based at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

AGNI (magazine)

AGNI (magazine)

AGNI is an American literary magazine founded in 1972 that publishes poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, interviews, and artwork twice a year in print and weekly online from its home at Boston University. Its coeditors are Sven Birkerts and William Pierce.

International Writing Program

International Writing Program

The International Writing Program (IWP) is a writing residency for international artists in Iowa City, Iowa. Since 2014, the program offers online courses to many writers and poets around the world. Since its inception in 1967, the IWP has hosted over 1,500 emerging and established poets, novelists, dramatists, essayists, and journalists from more than 150 countries. Its primary goal is to introduce talented writers to the writing community at the University of Iowa, and to provide for the writers a period of optimal conditions for their creative work. Since 2000, the IWP has been directed by poet and journalist Christopher Merrill.

Colgate University

Colgate University

Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theological and Literary Institution, often called Hamilton College (1823–1846), then Madison College (1846–1890), and its present name since 1890.

Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture in his name. The first classes were held on September 16, 1874, with six instructors and 39 students. It has been ranked as among the best public universities in the United States by major institutional rankings, and is renowned for its engineering program.

City College of New York

City College of New York

The City College of the City University of New York is a public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, City College was the first free public institution of higher education in the United States. It is the oldest of CUNY's 25 institutions of higher learning and is considered its flagship college.

Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York, the fifth-oldest in the United States, and one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence.

Bucknell University

Bucknell University

Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineering. It offers 65 majors and over 70 minors in the humanities, arts, mathematics, natural science, social sciences, engineering, management, as well as programs and pre-professional advising that prepare students for study in law and medicine. Located just south of Lewisburg, the 445-acre (1.80 km2) campus rises above the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as a college "under the care of Friends, [and] at which an education may be obtained equal to that of the best institutions of learning in our country." By 1906, Swarthmore had dropped its religious affiliation and officially became non-sectarian.

Source: "Chinelo Okparanta", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 6th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinelo_Okparanta.

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Further Reading

Zadie Smith

Susan Choi

Helen Oyeyemi

Nnedi Okorafor

Madeleine Thien

Helon Habila

Mieko Kawakami

John Freeman (author)

Maaza Mengiste

Alix Ohlin

9mobile Prize for Literature

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

Chigozie Obioma

Sarah Gerard

Yaa Gyasi

Carmen Maria Machado

Under the Udala Trees

Happiness, Like Water
Bibliography
References
  1. ^ Mythili Rao, "Chinelo Okparanta: Champion of the Stifled". The Daily Beast, August 19, 2013.
  2. ^ a b Rae Winkelstein-Duveneck, "Religion, The Bible, and Personal Morality: An Interview with Chinelo Okparanta", The Iowa Review, March 19, 2013.
  3. ^ Ligaya Mishan, "How She Left: 'Happiness, Like Water,' by Chinelo Okparanta" (review), The New York Times Book Review, September 15, 2013.
  4. ^ "Chinelo Okparanta". Granta. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  5. ^ Munllonch, Montse Domínguez i (July 11, 2019). "Books to read and see. Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta.⁠". misitio. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  6. ^ "New Voices in Fiction Reading by Chinelo Okparanta | UChicago Arts | The University of Chicago". arts.uchicago.edu. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  7. ^ "Swarthmore College Bulletin - Course Catalog. English Literature". Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  8. ^ Dennis-Benn, Nicole Y. (July 22, 2014). "Chinelo Okparanta: Interview". Mosaic Literary Magazine. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  9. ^ Services, UH Libraries Web (February 13, 2019). "Poetry and Prose February 20 | University of Houston Libraries". Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  10. ^ Charles, Ron (June 2, 2014). "Lambda Awards honor best lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books". The Washington Post.
  11. ^ "Chinelo Okparanta". PEN America. March 7, 2014. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  12. ^ "Lambda Literary Leadership Archives | Lambda Literary". Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  13. ^ "Celebrated young author to speak at PSU". pittstate. October 7, 2014. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  14. ^ Brown, Keira (July 16, 2013). "The Missing Women of the Caine Prize". For Books' Sake. Archived from the original on February 7, 2022.
  15. ^ "The O. Henry Prize Stories | Chinelo Okparanto", Author Spotlight, Random House.
  16. ^ Mishan, Ligaya (September 13, 2013). "How She Left". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  17. ^ Afritorial; Network, part of the Guardian Africa (December 17, 2013). "Best African fiction of 2013". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  18. ^ Sam-Duru, Prisca; Princewill Ekwujuru (March 11, 2015). "Who wins Etisalat Prize for Literature 2014?". Vanguard News. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  19. ^ "Candidates announced for Etisalat Prize for Literature", The Nation, December 14, 2014.
  20. ^ Carol Anshaw, "'Under the Udala Trees,' by Chinelo Okparanta" (Sunday Book ), The New York Times, October 23, 2015.
  21. ^ Anjali Enjeti, "Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta review – love in the time of Biafra", The Guardian, September 24, 2015.
  22. ^ Okparanta, Chinelo (September 22, 2015). Under the Udala Trees. ISBN 978-0-544-00336-1.
  23. ^ The New Yorker (September 14, 2018). "The 2018 National Book Awards Longlist: Fiction". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  24. ^ Publishers Lunch, Favorite Books of 2015, From the News Editor
  25. ^ Clift, Elayne. "Under the Udala Trees: A Novel". www.nyjournalofbooks.com. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  26. ^ "Africa's Young Literary Stars". The Single Story Foundation. August 15, 2016. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  27. ^ "Hurston/Wright Foundation | Hurston/Wright Foundation Announces 2016 Legacy Awards". October 24, 2016. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  28. ^ "The Ferro–Grumley Awards". The Publishing Triangle. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  29. ^ "2016 News | First Novelist Semifinalists 2016 | VCU Libraries". www.library.vcu.edu. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  30. ^ "Award Winners | Oakland Public Library". oaklandlibrary.org. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  31. ^ "Clarke's Books". www.clarkesbooks.co.za. Archived from the original on February 24, 2020. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  32. ^ "2018 Permafrost Book Prize in Fiction – Permafrost Magazine". Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  33. ^ "Under the Udala Trees | 2017 shortlist!". International Dublin Literary Award. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  34. ^ York, Carnegie Corporation of New. "Chinelo Okparanta". Carnegie Corporation of New York. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  35. ^ "10 outstanding Nigerian books for this year" Archived April 23, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Pulse, December 16, 2015.
  36. ^ Wilfred Okichie, "#YNAIJA2015REVIEW: THE FISHERMEN, BLACKASS, UNDER THE UDALA TREE… THE 10 MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2015", YNaija, December 13, 2015.
  37. ^ Tolu Daniel, "The Afridiaspora List – The Best African Novels of 2015", Afridiaspora, December 22, 2015.
  38. ^ "Granta 139: Best of Young American Novelists 3", Granta, Spring 2017.
  39. ^ "Granta's list of the best young American novelists", The Guardian, April 26, 2017.
  40. ^ Delgado, Anjanette (May 6, 2019). "New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent". New York Journal of Books.
  41. ^ Willie-Okafor, Paula (December 13, 2022). "Cover Story: Chinelo Okparanta, Iconic Storyteller of Queer Femininity, on Writing Race and Defying Convention". Open Country Mag. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
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