Sankofa
A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick
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4.2 • 40 Ratings
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- £0.99
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK · A BBC 2 BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK · SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FUTURES PRIZE · AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
'A captivating story about a mixed-race British woman who goes in search of the West African father she never knew' REESE WITHERSPOON
'Hard to put down' DAILY MAIL
'A real pleasure, it's funny, thought-provoking and holds a light up to everything from cultural differences to colonialism' STYLIST
'I LOVED Sankofa SO MUCH' MARIAN KEYES
'Slick pacing and unpredictable developments keep the reader alert right up to the novel's exhilarating ending' GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY
'Onuzo's sneakily breezy, highly entertaining novel leaves the reader rethinking familiar narratives of colonisation, inheritance and liberation' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
'A really great book, very poignant' SARA COX
Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother - the only parent who raised her - is dead.
Searching through her mother's belongings, she finds clues about the West African father she never knew. Through reading his student diary, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London, she discovers that he eventually became the president (some would say the dictator) of a small nation in West Africa - and he is still alive. She decides to track him down and so begins a funny, painful, fascinating journey, and an exploration of race, identity and what we pass on to our children.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A middle-aged, mixed-race woman struggles with several crises in Nigerian writer Onuzu's spellbinding latest (after Welcome to Lagos). Anna Bain is a 46-year-old Londoner whose mother, Bronwen, has just died, whose husband has been unfaithful, and who has been leading a lackluster life as a housewife. Following her white mother's funeral, she stumbles upon a diary written in the 1960s by her West African father, Francis Aggrey, hidden in a trunk. Francis left London before Anna's birth, and Bronwen raised her. Anna learns that her father was an international student who had boarded with Bronwen's family and became part of a group of West African students agitating for freedom from colonial rule. After leaving London, Aggrey became a guerrilla fighter, independence leader, and eventually the first president of Bamana following independence. Anna then finds Francis's memoir (published under his new name, Kofi Adjei) in a university archive, meets with his biographer in Edinburgh, and eventually meets Kofi in Bamana, where she seeks to resolve her conflicts over her racial and cultural identity. Onuzu's spare style elegantly cuts to the core of her themes ("I felt at peace, as if indeed two warring streams had finally merged," Anna reflects). The balancing of Anna's soul-searching with her thrilling discoveries makes for a satisfying endeavor.
