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Chinelo Okparanta

Chinelo Okparanta is the author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water. Her honors include an O. Henry Prize, the NAACP Image Award in Fiction, and the Young Lions Fiction Award, among others. Her second novel is Harry Sylvester Bird.

Essay The Ecstasy issue

Pain Like A Philosophy

By Chinelo Okparanta

“Pain like a scorching of skin and chest. Pain like a philosophy, a gift of sensation, a cruel reminder that I am alive.”