Source of book: Audiobook from the library
So, question: why should we care about Nigeria? Well, first of all, it is Africa’s most populous country, nearly twice as populous as the next largest, Ethiopia. With about two-thirds the population of the United States, it is the sixth most populous country on the planet. So that’s a big deal.
It is also one of the most religious countries in the world, nearly evenly split between Christianity and Islam. This will be important in the story later. It also consists of multiple ethnic and language groups - there are three official languages - and has a history of ethnic and religious conflict. (Like, well, most of the world, I guess. Sigh.)
This is actually the second book I have read that has the Nigerian Civil War of the 1960s as a key part of the story. Unlike Half of a Yellow Sun, which takes place entirely during the conflict, Under the Udala Trees starts out during the war, but takes place mostly afterward. The war, however, does haunt the protagonist and the other characters.
The book can be considered a coming-of-age story, and has some autobiographical elements, but is more complicated than that. It takes a look at the trauma of war, of conflict between parent and child, of coming to terms with one’s sexuality, and with living as an LGBTQ person in a deeply bigoted and unsafe society.
Spoilers follow, because I want to discuss elements of the plot. If you wish to read the book first, do so, and come back. Leave a comment if you like - I am always interested in hearing what other people think about books.
The plot follows Ijeoma from her childhood through her middle age. When she is a young girl, an air strike kills her father, Uzo, after he refuses to go to the shelter. This loss, and the subsequent devastation of the war reduce Ijeoma and her mother, Adaora, to poverty.
In order to survive, Adaora sends Ijeoma to live as a house girl with a school teacher and his family in another town, while Adaora tries to find a safe place for them. Unfortunately, she is suffering from a mental breakdown after her husband’s death and her discovery of the body, so she leaves Ijeoma alone for over a year without contact.
While living with the school teacher, she meets Amina, a refugee girl who has lost all of her known family in the war. Ijeoma convinces the school teacher to take Amina in too, even though Amina is of a different ethnicity and religion - she is Muslim and of the ethnicity of the enemy in the war.
Things go wrong when Ijeoma and Amina fall in love. They are caught in flagrante, and Ijeoma is sent back to live with her mother.
As a devout Christian, Adaora decides that Ijeoma has a demon and must be cured. A portion of the book details the informal “conversion therapy” that Adaora inflicts on her daughter, and, as one who knows my Bible all too well, this was a bit traumatic to listen to. Adaora meant well, I suppose, but this was very much child abuse.
Later, Ijeoma and Amina attend the same boarding school, and partially resume their relationship, but Amina eventually decide to cut it off, and marries as soon as she graduates.
With the war over, Adaora has built a retail business, and is thriving. However, she is determined to get Ijeoma married off.
This is a really fascinating dynamic, by the way. Adaora has spent a decade being furious at Uzo for leaving her a widow, and never does seem interested in marrying again. And yet she rails at Ijeoma that “a woman without a man is hardly a woman at all.” This is certainly ironic since Adaora really comes into and finds her own strength without a man. Would she have done so with one? Probably not.
Ijeoma meets a young woman named Ndidi, and they fall in love, although Ijeoma feels that she is in some way being unfaithful to Amina, her first love. This continues for some time.
Throughout this period, there is ongoing violence directed at LGBTQ people, both by Christians and Muslims. In my opinion, one of the ways that Nigeria has kept the peace between the competing religions is by directing their hate at LGBTQ people instead.
Everything changes when Ijeoma’s childhood friend, Chibundu, comes back into her life. He is looking for a wife, and asks her out. Ndidi actually gives her blessing for this - she figures if Ijeoma is able to live with a man, it will be an easier life for her. If not, then Ndidi will know she is secure in the relationship.
Through an incredibly awkward sequence, Ijeoma ends up consenting to marry Chibundu, even though she does not love him.
This turns out as badly as expected. They have a daughter together, but Ijeoma hates sex, and wishes she had a way out. Chibundu is understandably hurt and frustrated at being rejected.
He eventually finds the love letters that Ijeoma had written (but not sent) to Ndidi, and this eventually leads to their breakup. In the end, Ijeoma is able to have a relationship with Ndidi, but they have to keep it secret from all except family, due to its criminalization in Nigeria.
So, some thoughts on the book. First of all, with the exception of the nameless and faceless perpetrators of violence - the soldiers in the war, the religious bigots who burn and beat to death LGBTQ people - there are no villains. Everyone is complicated, flawed, and human.
Uzo sees Biafra losing its attempt to become independent, and this sends him into a mental tailspin. His death is essentially suicide - he knows he is risking death, but refuses to take shelter. This incident is based on the author’s life - her mother’s first husband was killed in an air strike, and her mother discovered his body. On the other hand, Uzo is incredibly important to Ijeoma, not least because he introduced her to the idea of metaphor, and reading texts in a non-literal manner.
Adaora is in many ways a terrible parent. But she also has no background that would assist her in understanding her daughter. She has been through trauma, and her religious beliefs lack the nuance of Uzo’s philosophy.
The “conversion therapy” chapters really are painful, not least because of my own childhood experiences. Adaora thinks she is doing the best she can, in the best way she can, but all she ends up doing is getting Ijeoma to shut down emotionally and hide her true self from her mother.
Ironically - and also very much in line with my own experience - Ijeoma’s immersion in Bible study leads to her rejection of fundamentalist interpretations, realizing that everything is a lot more complicated and contradictory, even within the text. By the time she is an adult, she has fully embraced the belief that she no longer needs to be “cured” of anything.
What is fascinating is that after Ijeoma’s marriage breaks up, Adaora finally comes around, accepting the fact that God does not make mistakes, and that LGBTQ people are in fact a natural part of creation. This allows for a true reconciliation later in life, which is pretty heartwarming. Perhaps Adaora cannot bear the thought of losing her only child, and so must come to understand her.
I wish I had the same hope for my own parents, but they have a favorite child already, and are not motivated the same way Adaora is.
Ijeoma is also complicated. I wouldn’t call her an unreliable narrator, exactly. She is as reliable as any human can be - and certainly her account of her own feelings throughout are accurate. She tends to freeze up when stressed, though, becoming unable to speak or move - probably a trauma response. She also tends to be heedless of the feelings of others, particularly of Chibundu.
In turn, Chibundu has is good and bad. He is casually sexist and patriarchal in line with his culture, although hardly as bad as most. Some of his behaviors are abusive. Not violent, but coercive when it comes to sex, and verbally problematic.
On the other hand, his feelings are totally understandable. He has married under false pretences - he would have full grounds for annulment here in California. He is being cut off, and treated as undesirable, for reasons he cannot understand until he discovers Ijeoma’s unfaithfulness.
It is fascinating that after their divorce, Chibundu never does remarry. He comes close, but ends up calling it off. He does continue to indulge in self-pity afterward.
An interesting line near the end is to the effect that there is a human tendency to want to be “the victim in someone else’s tragedy,” and that is how Ijeoma sees Chibundu’s self pity.
She is only half right, at best. The marriage was, of course, Ijeoma’s tragedy. But it was also Chibundu’s. He was genuinely in love with her, and was devastated to find it was not requited. Ijeoma’s treatment of him was, in my opinion, abusive as well. And she clearly was not honest with him about anything until she was caught.
Also in Chibundu’s favor is that he is clear that he does not consider homosexuality to be “an abomination.” His issue is that she married him, and thus she should either act like a wife, or leave. This is entirely fair. He is put in an impossible situation, and while his response isn’t perfect, he really does try to be as considerate as he can. I doubt I would have done better. He is also irrationally hopeful that she can love him - it’s humorous while piteous as well.
The book was written in 2015, a very different time for the United States. Back then, one could consider it a haven for LGBTQ people. Now, of course, under the Trump/Musk regime, LGBTQ rights are under attack. The Christian Nationalist wing of the party very much wants to make our country more like Nigeria, openly criminalizing any sexual expression other than reproductive heterosexuality.
So in some ways, this book reads a lot differently than it would have a decade ago.
I also want to note something the author herself pointed out: the opposition to LGBTQ people is an import from the West. Prior to colonization, many African cultures - like other indigenous cultures - accepted homosexual relationships. Even into modern times, this persisted. Okparanta’s grandmother was married to another woman, in fact, and that relationship was recognized.
One line in the book is spot on: “If you set off on a witch hunt, you will find a witch.” The reason for all bigotries is ultimately that search for a scapegoat - a witch to burn. And you will always find one.
We still have a hangover from the Inquisition in so many ways, particularly here in the United States, with our history of racialized violence. Finding scapegoats seems to be a winning political strategy here right now, unfortunately, and as a relatively small portion of the population, LGBTQ people are a convenient target.
I thought the book was well written, for the most part. The chapters on the “conversion therapy” went on a bit too long in my opinion, but I can see why the author did that. I have a solid Bible background, so I already knew all the passages by heart - it thus to me felt unnecessarily traumatic to go over it all again. But I understand that not all of her readers will be familiar with it all.
The handling of the characters was wonderfully nuanced, and the author lives up to her reputation of always standing with the powerless. Indeed, a more truly Christian approach than what passes for “christianity” here in America these days.
It’s definitely worth reading, and I intend to read her other works in the future.
Robin Miles was the narrator, and did a good job.
***
Further reading: An interview with the author
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