Chinelo Okparanta is a young writer who hails from Port Harcourt, Nigeria and currently lives in the United States. She is well-known for her short stories and has received numerous accolades. Her debut collection, Happiness Like Water, was Editor’s Choice for the New York Times Book Review and is considered by the Guardian to be one of the Best African Fiction pieces. Junior and senior English and Human Geography students got the opportunity to hear Ms. Okparanta speak on Monday, October 27th. She read us one of her spooky stories, “Marta,” in honor of Halloween, followed by an insightful question and answer period. I had the opportunity to interview Ms. Okparanta before her discussion.
Credit: Ms. Saraceno
Hewitt Times: Where does the title for your collection of stories come from, Happiness, Like Water?
Chinelo Okparanta: It comes from one of the stories in the collection, a story called Grace. There’s a moment in the story when a character named Grace is asked, “Are you happy,” and she says “Well you know happiness is like water. We’re always trying to grab onto it but it is always slipping into nothingness.” That’s why it’s called Happiness, Like Water.
HT: Is there one main theme that your stories fall under?
CO: I think for that collection we have characters who are trying to be happy and it seems that happiness is always slipping into nothingness. It involves a lot of women because I write at least in that collection about lives of women. So you see them trying to be happy in marriages and trying to be happy while raising children. It seems just a little bit out of reach for them.
HT: Is your collection rooted in personal experiences at all?
CO: It’s fiction, so none of the stories happened to me; however, I grew up in a house with many women, so on my mother’s side, she has many sisters, so I know women’s struggles. I know the pressure of bearing your husband’s child. I know the pressure of having to have a certain type of beauty. In that sense, it is inspired by things around me. Also, I’m very politically aware of what’s going on , so there’s a story in the collection that deals with oil spills that happened here in the US and relates it back to the oil spills that have been going on back home in Nigeria. So whatever is happening in contemporary culture and in politics also affects my stories.
HT: You requested that our English classes read the story, “Fairness.” Why did you choose this story for us to read above all of your other stories?
CO: (laughs) Well mostly because I asked Ms. Briggs what would be appropriate. I know that’s the most appropriate story of the collection for your age group and also the most pertinent. It addresses the standards of beauty in our society.
HT: Where do you think the large-scale preference for light skin comes from? Does it have to do with history at all?
CO: I’ve talked about it in certain literary salons. I don’t actually know the place where it comes from. You can trace it down in modern history ,and people from North America are going to say it has to do with slavery. I think in many cultures it has to do with colonialism. Westerners would come with their lighter skin and people in Nigeria or in Africa in general would say, “Oh, they’re better than us.” Westerners exoticize Africans, well Africans also exoticize them. There are certain elements about Africans that Westerners are jealous of and want. There are certain qualities of Westerners that Africans might deem are nicer just because it’s different. I’ve actually not done any research on it but just based on conversations, I would imagine that it has to do with colonialism and the idea that the West is better and more cultured, so people mimicked Westerners by straightening their hair and lightening their skin to seem a little more Western and civilized. Although, I would argue that Africans are civilized in their own way, and I would also argue that Westerners are very primitive in their own way too.
HT: I’m taking an English elective called “Dangers of a Single Story,” and we’ve discussed the ways in which Westerners dehumanize Africans and create a single narrative about them.How do you think we can refute these stereotypes and this false story?
I think we’re on that road. Since you read Fairness, if you look at the famous Lupita Nyong’o and how all of sudden people seem to say now a dark-skinned girl can be pretty. Actually, she doesn’t represent any standard of beauty that hasn’t already been in existence. It’s stupid to give power to that. I have a sister who is dark- skinned, and she was always beautiful in Nigeria. Then she moved to America, and she had a hard time, and she began to learn that it is not everywhere that she will be considered beautiful. Now she doesn’t care because she thinks she’s the most beautiful anyway. I think that the situation is beginning to change a little bit. I think what we need to be careful of is that we need to fight those binaries because it’s not like now black is beautiful and pale is ugly. It should never be about a binary, it should be about acknowledgement and acceptance of everyone’s beauty.
HT: What is your favorite story from the collection?
CO: That’s like asking a mother who is her favorite child (laughs). They’re all my favorite. I think that Grace is pretty good even though it seems to end in a sad way. I think America is also very hopeful just because it ends in this ambiguous way that validates both cultures like the Western but also your home. I want to be faithful to my home, but I also see the merits of being somewhere else, so you see both sides.
HT: Were there any challenges you had being from Nigeria and living in America?
CO: When I came here, my hair was very short. My brother and I were on the school bus in Boston when we were attacked by both white and black Americans to the point where we had nose bleeds and everything. They called us ‘Africans’ and asked ‘Do you live on trees’ and other things like that. To me, there’s a way in which everybody can come together. When we came to America, my mother and father, but especially my mother had a very thick Nigerian accent. So it was hard seeing her struggle. My father got accepted to school. She wanted to do something with herself so she would call to try to get information about programs. She would be on the phone and they would swear that she didn’t speak English which is the official language of Nigeria, and they’d say ‘Miss, you need to get help elsewhere.’ She used to give the phone to me and my brother and say, “Can you say this for me.” And she still does that because there’s this confidence that she still doesn’t quite have. Some Africans might come and say I’m proud of my accent, and that’s a good thing, but I think they have the luxury of that. When you’re young, and you come to America, you can’t simply choose to keep your accent. If you need to be understood you will need to figure out a way to do that because it’s a matter of survival. It’s not just a fashion statement to have your accent.
HT: Is there anything that you are working on right now that we can look forward to?
CO: Yes there is! My novel is supposed to come out in the fall of next year. It deals with similar themes of mother and child, of marriages, of religion, and self.