[1] She was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where she was raised[2] until the age of 10, when she immigrated to the United States with her family.

[10] She has been nominated for a United States Artists Fellowship[11] and was a finalist for the 2014 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in Literature.

[16] The collection was also listed as one of The Guardian's Best African Fiction of 2013,[17] and in December 2014 was announced as being a finalist for the Nigerian Etisalat Prize for Literature.

The New York Times reviewer called Okparanta "a graceful and precise writer",[20] and The Guardian (UK) describes the book as "a gripping novel about a young gay woman's coming of age in Nigeria during the Nigerian civil war..." in which "...Okparanta deftly negotiates a balance between a love story and a war story.

[23] One of NPR's "Best Books of 2015", it also made the BuzzFeed, The Wall Street Journal, The Millions, Bustle, Shelf Awareness, and Publishers Lunch "Best of"[24] and "Most Anticipated" lists, among others.

[30] Under the Udala Trees also won the 2016 Jessie Redmon Fauset Book Award in Fiction[31] and was a 2017 Amelia Bloomer Project Selection of the American Library Association.

Legacy Chinelo Okparanta has been credited for being a champion for marginalized and underprivileged voices throughout her career by the novelist, Helon Habila.