Under the Udala Trees Audiobook

Quotes

• “The love story has hypnotic power…Details of disco-era Nigeria—jerricans filled with palm wine, a suitor in bell-bottom trousers—suggest Okparanta’s skill and promise.”

  — New Yorker

• “This is a story of queerness in a society where it needs to be hidden, and an account of how their love story plays out after they are yanked apart.”

  — New York Times

• “Deftly negotiates a balance between a love story and a war story.”

  — Guardian (London)

• “[An] exquisite first novel about wars—both external and internal—endurance, survival, and love.”

  — Edwidge Danticat, National Book Critics Circle Award winner

• “[A] powerful interweaving of the personal and the political. Okparanta’s simple, direct prose is interspersed with the language of allegory and folklore.”

  — Financial Times (London)

• “Blends traditional storytelling with a knockout plot.”

  — Essence

• “A unique story told in a distinctive, lyrical voice.”

  — Newsday

• “The emotional honesty that drives [Under the Udala Trees] is devastating.”

  — Christian Science Monitor

• “Stunningly moving and beautiful…honest and unflinching, yet leavened with hope.”

  — BuzzFeed

• “Rich in complexity, compassionate in the treatment of political violence and flagrant oppression…equal parts folk tale and confessional.”

  — Minneapolis Star-Tribune

• “[A] beautifully paced story about the high stakes of living one’s truth.”

  — Bust

• “Throws into sharp relief the historical and continuing struggles of the LGBTQ population of Nigeria…[and] manages to leave readers hopeful for a better future through love and courage.”

  — Shelf Awareness (starred review)

• “Stunningly captures a young girl’s coming of age against the backdrop of a nation at war. "

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

• “Excellent…Okparanta’s characters are just as compelling as teenagers as they are as adults and readers will be swept up in this tale of the power of love.”

  — Publishers Weekly

• “A remarkable portrait of a young woman’s coming-of-age in a society where rigid interpretations of the Bible label same-sex relationships as an ‘abomination,’ and where violence is all too often part of the ‘solution.’”

  — Booklist

• “This absorbing story parallels the ongoing struggle for equality in Nigeria and is a powerful contribution to LGBT and African literature.”

  — Library Journal

• “Under the Udala Trees is written in a folkloric cadence, a music that echoes the many Nigerian war stories and songs that are woven into the book.”

  — Literary Hub

• “Chinelo Okparanta tells a unique and devastatingly hopeful story about the paradox of love: even in the midst of war, and in a world dominated by violence and prejudice, still, love transcends.”

  — Mia Couto, author of Sleepwalking Land

• “Boldly unadorned and utterly heartbreaking—Okparanta dares to tell a story that the world desperately needs to hear…Under the Udala Trees is a triumph.”

  — Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must Go

• “Under the Udala Trees is an evocative, fiercely told story… Okparanta is an incendiary, essential voice.”

  — Justin Torres, author of We the Animals

• “A searing, yet delicately nuanced, story of an age of innocence first shattered by the vulgarity of war and its aftermath, and then by forbidden desire and religious intolerance.”

  — Zakes Mda, author of The Heart of Redness

• “Gorgeous, moving, and entirely hopeful.”

  — Jami Attenberg, author of Saint Mazie

• “[A] wise-beyond-its-years novel.”

  — Bay Area Reporter Online