So, even after the war, Ijeoma is confronted with a different challenge: living as an igbo lesbian in post-civil war Nigeria. As an adult, Ijeoma contends with the ever-present threat of being discovered, of being outed and subject to beatings — or murder. The suppression of identity Ijeoma faces is so strong that “lesbian” is not a term she uses herself. Ijeoma doesn’t have the space to create and refine linguistic authority. Much of her mental energies are spent deconditioning herself. I suppose it's the way we are, humans that we are. Always finding it easier to make ourselves the victim in someone else's tragedy. Though it is true, too, that sometimes it is hard to know to whom the tragedy really belongs.” Neither discrimination nor manipulation are solely tactics of colonizers. An easy way to unite and distract two people is to scapegoat a third person. Suffering people are angry people, and angry people often need to be given an outlet for their anger before they start to ask too many questions about why they’re mad. It’s no coincidence that the hyper-vigilance of queer Nigerians is on the rise again as the 2023 presidential elections draw near. The SSMPA was signed into law in 2014, a year before the 2015 Nigerian presidential elections. The further criminalization of queer people in Nigeria will do nothing to alleviate many of the economic and social burdens currently facing Nigerians, but it does provide a smaller, unprotected portion of the populace for the majority to vent their anger on.

I'd be surprised if no one else has yet described the book as the "Oranges are Not the Only Fruit" for Nigeria. Like that book, it's a coming-of-age story; a personal, painful look at what it is like to first fall in love with another woman, in an environment where lesbians are treated harshly (in this book, even killed) and denounced by so-called Christianity. 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. Under the Udala Trees is narrated in lyrical and lucid prose, in a wise and compassionate voice. It bowled me over According to Marxist critic Fredric Jameson in his article “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism,” the post-colonial text has to be read allegorically: applied to the Bildungsroman, this theory points to the parallel evolution of the hero/heroine and the nation. This generalization is problematic and cannot be applied to all “third-world” texts but Under the Udala Trees lends itself to such a reading. And the love affair between Ijeoma and Ndidi was heady for me. I did like how things turned out for two of them. This] debut novel eloquently advocates resisting the narratives handed down by previous generations, and the unadorned eroticism of Ijeoma's relationships with other women is a rebuke to the doctrine that condemns them as an "abomination". Okparanta takes comfort in the capacity for people to change, but her postscript is poignant: in 2014, Nigeria criminalised the very relationships she portraysWow! Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees is amazing! Amid the political upheaval of Nigeria’s civil war and after her father’s death, 11-year old Ijeoma is sent to live with family friends. There she befriends and eventually falls in love with a girl from a different ethnic tribe. In a country with some of the strictest laws against homosexuality, there is virtually no acceptance of such a relationship. When Ijeoma’s relationship is discovered, her mother reclaims her and pressures her to lead a normal life. The biggest part of that normal life is getting married and having children. From her very religious mother’s point of view, that is the only way Ijeoma can be complete. Ijeoma wants both to be accepted in society and to make her mother happy. However, Ijeoma recognizes the high cost of living a life according to other people’s morality. The novel draws on several themes relating to war, family, mother-daughter relationships, homosexuality, religion and Bildungsroman.

Boldly unadorned and utterly heartbreaking - Okparanta dares to tell a story that the world desperately needs to hear. Almost fable-like in its simplicity... Raw, emotionally intelligent and unflinchingly honest... a triumph We follow Ijeoma as she enters a rather uneventful marriage and finds true love outside her marriage in the person of Ndidi. This doesn't last as well as Ijeoma is forced to marry someone else. She has kids but she isn't happy. She isn't herself at all. Should she choose love or endure the unhappiness of her arranged marriage to Chibundu? Under the Udala Trees [recalls] the work of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in its powerful interweaving of the personal and the political. Okparanta's simple, direct prose is interspersed with... allegory and folklore and... the dizzying scope of her storytelling keeps you gripped Ultimately, Ijeoma finds a way to bring even her most ardent detractors to her side, proving to them that queer love cannot be simply wished away, or erased by changing one’s lifestyle to one considered more conventionally acceptable. While this leaves a lot of interrupted lives in her wake, perhaps the lesson to be learnt here is that if only the world around her had let Ijeoma be, then maybe there would not have been as much pain around her as there was.Ijeoma, the title character in the novel, is a girl under moral siege. Having been raised Christian, she grapples to find a balance between the religious teachings that her mother forces upon her, and the strong feelings that she has for her friend Amina. Okparanta does an excellent job of laying out before the reader those verses in the Bible that are often used as a defence against homosexual love. Through Ijeoma’s mind, the reader gets to ask themselves crucial questions about these scriptures: Should they be read literally, or should one seek to find metaphorical meaning within them? And how does one reconcile those feelings naturally felt within them with the castigation of the Bible? Does it then become a castigation of self? Critical Reception for Under the Udala Trees has been generally positive, praising the structure of the prose, writing style and discussion of themes while more negative criticism has been directed from some readers at not being able to sympathise with the plight of the LGBT characters in the Nigerian context.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. “The Bildungsroman and its Significance in the History of Realism (Toward a Historical Typology of the Novel).” Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Eds. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1986. 10-59. Uzo: Ijeoma's father. Killed in an airstrike at the start of the novel, an event which has mental health consequences for Adaora and pushes her to resort to the Bible for solace, a move which affects how she treats Ijeoma for the rest of the novel. Uzo's critical thinking skills displayed at the start of the novel, which Ijeoma herself inherits, and are vital for her to be able to critically reinterpret the bible herself and use this to eventually shut down the bible's oppressive power. The ending was a bit sad and the author's note was a rude awakening, reminding me of the true stand of LGBTQ+ Nigerians and at the moment, there is not true happy ending!In Under the Udala Trees, Ms. Okparanta states that her novel is attempting to “give Nigeria’s marginalized LGBTQ citizens a more powerful voice, and a place in our nation’s history.” The book is, at its core, a coming-of-age story in which the narrator --Ijeoma – is sent to live with friends of the family during wartime. Her sexual and emotional awakening at the hands of another displaced girl, Amina, sets in motion a long struggle for self-acceptance. Moretti, Franco. “‘A Useless Longing for Myself’: The Crisis of the European Bildungsroman, 1898-1914.” Studies in Historical Change. Ed. Ralph Cohen. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 1992. 43-59.