6/10/2023 0 Comments Chinelo okparanta booksThis peculiar naming, coupled with the fact that Harry calls his parents by their first names, signals a departure from the norm. Yes, Harry's mother, referred to as Chevy throughout the book, is named after an American car brand. When we first meet Harry, the book's 14-year-old protagonist from Pennsylvania, it is December 2016, and he has just arrived at a resort in Kizimkazi, Tanzania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevrolet. In this case, the protagonist, whose early-stages transition is more psychological than physical or cultural, goes from identifying as a white American to more of a Black African. Likewise, Okparanta's latest novel, "Harry Sylvester Bird," is a curious forerunner of sorts, entering, with seemingly little trepidation and a lot of satire, into the unwieldy, tumultuous territory of racial reassignment. Today, it is almost trending, explored by prose and poetry writers in books and literary journals. When the book came out in 2015, writing about homosexuality appeared to be taboo among Nigerian writers. Her first novel, "Under the Udala Trees," deftly tackled gay love in Nigeria against the tragic backdrop of the Biafran War. Nigerian-American writer Chinelo Okparanta hardly shies away from contentious matters.
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