Sankofa – Chibundu Onuzo (2021)

The striking cover of Sankofa first caught my attention when I saw it on Twitter – and then later when I heard about the novel on the BBC Between the Covers book programme I knew I wanted to read it. The Sankofa is a mythical bird in West African culture – flying forwards while facing backwards it teaches people that they must first go back in order to move forwards.

Sankofa is a novel about a woman’s search for her identity, at a time when her life is in transition following separation from her husband and the death of her mother. Anna’s mother raised her alone, and has been dead six months when Anna discovers her father’s diary in a trunk in her mother’s house. Anna’s mother, Bronwen Bain was white, from a traditional Welsh family transplanted to London, the father who she never met and who was never talked about was black. Anna’s mother struggled with Anna’s racial identity – to her Anna was her daughter and that was enough, she didn’t recognise the racism that Anna encountered growing up, never really understood how to do her hair. 

Now Anna is middle aged, in her late forties and contemplating a divorce. Her husband Robert had an affair. Her daughter Rose is twenty-one, grown up enough to not need her as much, striking out on her own path. Anna is at that point in her life, with her mother having recently died, when she isn’t really very sure who she is anymore.

“A sense of rightness, a sense of self. It was nothing when you had it. You hardly noticed. But once it was missing, it was like a sliver of fruit on a long sea voyage, the difference between bleeding gums and survival.”

The diary she discovers that day is that of Francis Aggrey – Anna’s father – who returned to West Africa before Anna’s mother even realised she was pregnant. Francis had been lodging in Bronwen’s father’s house – his diary relates his time in London, arriving in 1969, around the time of Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood speech. Anna immediately engages with the voice of this young man who is her father, he records his impressions of London, the prejudice he encounters, the friendship he found in the Bain household. He writes about the other new friends he made in London, other Africans far from home, who lit a political fire in him.

Some newspaper clippings kept by her mother reveal that Francis Aggrey returned to his country of Bamana in West Africa, where he became a political agitator in the drive for independence. Francis changed his name to Kofi Adjei and later became the country’s president – and many would say dictator, a position he held for almost thirty years, before stepping down. Anna also discovers that he is still alive.

With her mother’s home finally sold, and the money to do as she pleases, Anna decides to travel to Bamana to find her father. Although she realises one can’t just go to the door of a former president and ring the bell. She enlists the help of Adrian, an academic who knew her father many years earlier and once wrote a book about him. Once in Bamana Anna waits in a hotel in the capital Segu, while Adrian arranges a meeting – though he doesn’t reveal to Adjei who he is bringing with him to the meeting.

“The outcome of my journey was uncertain. My father might postpone our meeting again. I might have come this far and never meet him. I would be disappointed, but the trip would not have been a waste. I had seen other things: the markets of Segu, the slave fort of El Santos and the confidence of white men in an African country.”

Growing up in England Anna could only ever be black – here in Bamana her lighter coloured skin and British passport show her to not be African. She is regarded with some suspicion, and in time Anna is made to reflect upon her own assumptions, her gaze is a western one – she has a lot to learn about her father’s land. My one very small criticism of the way the character of Anna is written is that I often started to think of her as being a much younger woman, I kept forgetting she was the mother of an adult daughter.

In time Anna meets her father – the first meeting is not auspicious, but just as Anna is planning to return to England, Adjei reaches out again. Anna finds she must try and reconcile the voice of the diarist as also being this old, powerful former president – they appear to be such different men. Adjei is still incredibly powerful, adored and hated in equal measure – he is a man who can make things happen – and sometimes that is a little frightening. In coming to terms with who she is, Anna has to get to know this complex man, she meets a couple of her half siblings and starts to understand something about the country of Bamana.

Sankofa is a compelling story of race and identity it’s a novel of hope and self-discovery.