‘As a person in the diaspora sometimes you ask yourself, well who will claim you? And then it really is up to you to claim a place for yourself.’
Granta Magazine’s Luke Neima speaks to Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness Like Water, about being one of Granta’s 2017 Best of Young American Novelists. They discuss homophobia, the inspiration of dreams and the challenges of having both a Nigerian and an American audience.
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘I wanted to be sure to approach their resistance to Nnenna’s homosexuality from a practical perspective – one of fear, rather than one of hate.’
‘All that thought of home gave the girl a sickly feeling, the longing of something so out of reach, something she wasn’t even sure she could any longer truly remember.’
‘The cultural presentations of the students – that juxtaposition of old and new world, of tradition and modernity.’
‘The year Mama fell sick was the year Njideka confessed to me that she was a runs girl.’
‘Natalia picks at the frayed black lace of her dress while the photograph of her American penpal loads into the computer.’
