Chinelo Okparanta was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She received her BS from Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers University, and her MFA from Iowa Writers Workshop, where she served as a Provosts Postgraduate Visiting Writer. She is the author of America (2012), which was shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing. She has been nominated for a United States Artists Fellowship in Literature, and her collection of short stories, Happiness, Like Water (2013) was long-listed for the Frank OConnor International Short Story Award.
Genres: Literary Fiction
Novels
Collections
Chinelo Okparanta recommends
Big Girl (2022)
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
"Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's Big Girl is a touching meditation on youth. Malaya, our protagonist, is remarkable as she carries forth growing into herself despite the many obstacles thrown her way. I was immersed in this evocative novel. Even as she poignantly depicts the turmoil in Malaya's life, Sullivan reminds us that there is room to laugh, for the world is made up of beautiful, sometimes inappropriate, often hilarious folks! Malaya's story will stay with you long after the novel is through."
Conjure Women (2020)
Afia Atakora
"Richly imagined and elegantly rendered, Conjure Women transports us into the lives of powerfully determined women. Their intricate web of secrets will keep you turning its pages. Ambitious, hypnotic, not quite devastating, Conjure Women marks the arrival of a major new voice."
Freshwater (2018)
Akwaeke Emezi
"In Emezi’s remarkable debut novel, Freshwater, we enter the lives of our protagonist, starting in Nigeria and ending in the United States. Every page is imbued with radiant prose, and a chorus of poetic voices. With a plot as alive and urgent as it is relatable, Freshwater is also solidly its own, brims with its unique preoccupations. Never before have I read a novel like it?one that speaks to the unification and separation of bodies and souls, the powers or lack thereof of gods and humans, and the long and arduous journey to claiming our many selves, or to setting our many selves free."
Anthologies containing stories by Chinelo Okparanta
Tales of Two Planets (2020)
Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World
edited by
John Freeman
Awards
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