Chinelo Okparanta — This Impossible Life - with Helon Habila

Chinelo Okparanta discusses her novel *This Impossible Life* in conversation with Helon Habila. The book follows Alohan and Ivie, two siblings whose lives are upended after their parents—an itinerant rainmaker and his wife—are killed when a rainmaking ritual brings devastating consequences at a wedding.

Orphaned, eleven-year-old Alohan assumes responsibility for his four-year-old sister. Their deep bond helps them survive, but a later mistake draws them into a wealthy couple’s criminal scheme and sends them along sharply different paths. The story explores loss, loyalty, crime, betrayal, exploitation, and survival across Nigeria, the United States, and Italy, spanning several decades and contrasting the lives of the privileged with those forced to endure extreme hardship.

When: Monday, November 9, 2026, at 7:00 p.m.

Venue: Politics and Prose at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008.

Format: In-person event with a livestream option available through the event page.

Tickets: Free.

Seating: First come, first served.

Lineup: Chinelo Okparanta, author, in conversation with Helon Habila.

Author: Chinelo Okparanta was born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Her work includes the short-story collection *Happiness, Like Water* and the novel *Under the Udala Trees*. Her writing has received major award recognition, including nominations for the Nigerian Writers Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Kirkus Prize, and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She has also been a New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award finalist and a member of *Granta*’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her fiction and essays have appeared in *The New Yorker*, *Granta*, *Tin House*, *The Kenyon Review*, and *AGNI*. She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Swarthmore College.

Conversation Partner: Helon Habila is a Nigerian-born professor of creative writing at George Mason University. His novels include *Waiting for an Angel*, *Measuring Time*, *Oil on Water*, and *Travelers*. He edited *The Granta Book of the African Short Story* and wrote *The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria*, an account of the 2014 abduction of schoolgirls in Nigeria. His fiction, poetry, and short stories have received honors including the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Novel in Africa, the Virginia Library Foundation’s Prize for Fiction, the Caine Prize, and Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize. He lives in Virginia with his wife and children.

Accessibility: Requests for accommodations and accessibility inquiries should be sent to events@politics-prose.com, ideally at least one week before the event. The venue will try to accommodate requests made up to the event time.

Run time: Not stated.

Related book: *This Impossible Life: A Novel* is available for preorder in hardcover for $32.00, with a listed publication date of November 10, 2026.