BOOK REVIEW: SANKOFA BY CHIBUNDU ONUZO.

Always look back at your past, because it paves the way for your future.

Ezioma Kalu.

BLURB

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 one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say dictator—of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive…

When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny, and fascinating. Like the metaphorical bird that gives the novel its name, Sankofa expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present to address universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for a family’s hidden roots.

MY REVIEW

Sankofa is an African word, culled from the Akan tribe in Ghana.
San — To return.
Ko — To go.
Fa — To fetch.
So literally, Sankofa means to go back and retrieve. It means going back to your roots, your history, your origin.
Sankofa is symbolized by a mythic bird which flies forward, while looking backward, with an egg in its mouth. The egg denotes the future. It means that it is not a crime to go back and fetch what you left behind. It means that we must always revisit the past, garner the best lessons from it, and surge ahead to make the best of the present and future. It means that we must have a sound grasp of the past, in order to understand the present and make the most out of the future.

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.

Chibundu Onuzo, Sankofa.

There comes a time in everyone’s life, when you’d have to go back to the past, before you’d understand the future, because the past plays a great role in nurturing the present and paving way for the future. There comes a time, when you’d have to look back and make reference to your history, so you’d know who you are and where you’re headed. That’s the core of Sankofa, it encourages you to ask these questions; what happened in the past? who am I? Who is my father? Where am I from? Why are things done this way? And a lot more…

The world will always have people like this, trying to press guilt on you, forcing pamphlets with gory pictures into your hands, holding you personally accountable for wars, famines, genocides. Why not be of use to those around you?

Chibundu Onuzo, Sankofa.

In Onuzo’s Sankofa, the forty eight year old protagonist, Anna Graham, a biracial mother of one, with a Welsh mother and a black father, faces the most devastating phase of her life; losing her only parent, her mum, going through a divorce after separating from her husband for a year, and having to battle with the toughest conundrum of her life, her father’s identity.
In the midst of her anguish, she stumbles on a diary belonging to Francis Aggrey, and while perusing the contents, the plot reveals that the black, revolutionary student, in a London University in the 1960’s, Francis Aggrey, is Anna’s father.

Not even crocodiles eat their young…papa takes care of his children.

Chibundu Onuzo, Sankofa.

In the midst of her anguish, she stumbles on a diary belonging to Francis Aggrey, and while perusing the contents, the plot reveals that the black, revolutionary student, in a London University in the 1960’s, Francis Aggrey, is Anna’s father.
Anna must make the greatest decision of her life, tracing her origin and going back to her root. She must take a trip to Bamana, a fictional country in West Africa, and seek her father out…
Sankofa introduces us to many worlds; the worlds of racism and colorism, the worlds of power and dictatorship, the worlds of colonialism and corruption. And most especially, teaches us the importance of ‘self,’ and laying credence to the quote by the great philosopher Socrates, ‘Man know thyself.’ It’s a 4/5 book for me.

Have you read the book? What do you feel about it? Please share your thoughts with me in the comment section. Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on all social media platforms and share with your friends.
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