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The man behind her
In "The Shivering," Chinedu is a gay Nigerian man living in Princeton student housing to evade his impending deportation notice from the US government. He's a devout Pentecostal Christian, and like Ukamaka, he dated a man who tried to control and dictate Chinedu's every move. Chinedu believes that God uses a different type of logic than people do; his faith is blind and trusting. Ukamaka thinks of him as being from the "bush" because of his poor table manners, his style of speaking English, and his unsightly facial features.
Chinedu Quotes in The Thing Around Your Neck
The The Thing Around Your Neck quotes below are all either spoken by Chinedu or refer to Chinedu. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Shivering Quotes
Staid, and yet she had been arranging her life around his for three years... Staid, and yet she cooked her stews with hot peppers now, the way he liked.
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Chinedu Character Timeline in The Thing Around Your Neck
The timeline below shows where the character Chinedu appears in The Thing Around Your Neck. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Shivering
...bathroom. When she returns, the man is still in her kitchen. He introduces himself as Chinedu. Chinedu sits down on her couch and talks about his morning listening to the news....
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Chinedu asks Ukamaka if she knew anyone on the flight. She says that her ex-boyfriend Udenna...
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Ukamaka invites Chinedu to stay for lunch. Ukamaka tries to engage him in theological conversation, but Chinedu only...
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Ukamaka continues to ask Chinedu about his religious reasoning and she takes note of the "bush" way he eats rice...
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Chinedu says he saw Ukamaka and Udenna in the parking lot one day and knew they...
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...Ukamaka refreshes her web page and it reads that everyone on the plan was killed. Chinedu implies that the crash was a punishment from God.
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...used to go to Mass daily, but stopped. She says she simply stopped believing, though Chinedu deems it a crisis of faith and asks for more rice. Ukamaka explains that Udenna...
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Ukamaka marvels at Chinedu's friendliness with the other residents of their building. She tries to ask Chinedu about his...
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On Sundays, Ukamaka drives Chinedu to his Pentecostal church, attends a Catholic service, and then they go grocery shopping together....
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...and how her uncle teased Udenna about when he was going to propose. She asks Chinedu what he's going to do with his chemistry doctorate, but Chinedu says he doesn't know...
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...she still has his photograph up in her room. Back at Ukamaka's apartment, she tells Chinedu that he doesn't know what it's like to "love an asshole." He replies that he...
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Ukamaka expresses disbelief that Abidemi could claim to love Chinedu but only expect Chinedu to do things that Abidemi wanted. She says that Udenna was...
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The day Ukamaka kicks Chinedu out of her apartment, she'd begun to notice that he never went to campus and...
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Ukamaka invites Chinedu to come to Catholic Mass with her. In the car, she tells him about her...
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