"Sankofa," by Chibundu Onuzo

“Sankofa” (Catapult, 2021), by the British writer Chibundu Onuzo, is a story about identity, family, and culture. Anna, the main character, lives in London and has a white mother and a black African father whom she has never met, and knows very little about. She now has a fraying marriage and a happy but complex relationship with her a loving relationship with her adult daughter. At the beginning of the novel, Anna’s mother, whom she dearly loved, has just died, and Anna has discovered a trunk that contains the diary of her father, Francis. Francis had been a student in London, boarding with Anna’s mother’s family. After Francis’ and Anna’s mother’s brief affair, Francis returned to his small country in Africa, Bamana, and never knew he was a father. After reading Francis’ diary, Anna finds out that Francis, now Kofi, had become the (now former but still powerful) president of Bamana, and was and is both revered and feared. She decides to travel to Bamana to meet him. Things get complicated; I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but I can say that Anna, who had suffered discrimination in London for being mixed-race, and who had had questions about her identity, learns much about her family, her identity, and herself. The novel is compelling as a story, and also addresses important issues about race, colonialism, family, and the compromises that postcolonial governments often have to make.