Verdict: carrot
From 1967 to 1970, the Nigerian state of Biafra tried but failed to gain its independence in a civil war that left a million dead. Heads separated from their bodies, bodies relieved of their limbs, unforgettable starving children, pictures burned into the collective retina of the time. In “Under the Udala Trees,” the first novel by the Nigerian-born writer Chinelo Okparanta (following her story collection, “Happiness, Like Water,” which was shortlisted for the Caine Prize), the protagonist, Ijeoma, is a child, a bystander to those horrific days. Her father refuses on principle to hide in the family bunker and is killed in an air raid. Her mother, unable to bear this loss, collapses. Not everyone rises to heroism in hard times. Unable to care for her daughter, she farms out Ijeoma to a friend in another town, a grammar-school teacher and his wife, to be used as their servant.
Book Details
- Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
EAN: 9780544003446
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