There are a number of novels out in the past few years in which someone returns/visits for the first time the African country of their birth/their parents/their ancestors. This one stands apart from the rest both in the quality of the writing and in how it refuses to follow any expected path.

Anna is separated and her Welsh mother's death has unsettled her. She never met her father, a student who returned home to Africa before she was born. Clearing out her mother's things, she finds his diary from his time in London and decides to find him. What she finds out about him is that his life was far from ordinary and while she felt she got to know who he was from his account of being a Black man in England during Enoch Powell's heyday, who his is now is a far different person.

Traveling to a small country on the west coast of Africa, Anna is out of her element. Always made to feel like an outsider in England, she's surprised to find that she's seen as an outsider in Africa, too. Her father is elusive and placed so far outside of what she's used to, Anna behaves in ways that surprise her.

This is a novel that kept turning in directions I didn't expect and I loved how nuanced and complex Onuzo allowed the story to become. There are no easy solutions or correct choices here, just the ones made by fallible human beings. And what looks like good from one angle, is not necessarily good from the other side. I'm eager to read this author's previous novels.

I couldn't put down this story of Anna, a biracial woman who never knew her father and was raised by her white mother in London. After her mother passes away, she discovers a diary written by her father when he was a young Black student in England, and goes to Africa to meet him. Her experience of getting to know her father as a man who has changed since he wrote the diary, while getting to know a new part of herself, is compulsively readable and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed this one!

In this unputdownable novel, a woman in the middle of a divorce and grieving the death of her mother finds a journal in her mother's things written by the father she never knew and decides to track him down.

I had a hard time getting into this book, but perhaps it was that the pace - which is a very slow and deliberate unfolding - was going such at a different rate of speed as my life at the time that I could not get in sync. I will try again in a few months and suspect I will enjoy it more, as the premise is really lovely.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

I really liked this. It was impossible to put down.

Anna's father returned to Africa before she was born. When her mother has died, and she goes through her things, she finds the journal he kept as a student in London.

The whole book is about identity. Will finding her father help her to figure out who she is?

I definitely recommend it.

Special thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my own opinion.

Well this book was very sloooow. Actually I'm alk for middle-aged women finding their selves and their roots but I thought this book was not executed in a way that made it move along and I also felt that it didn't really come together. This book wasn't for me, however, its definitely not terrible. I just didn't enjoy and found myself skimming.

In this highly readable novel, we are introduced to Anna, a biracial (Black/white) woman who appears to exist in a mild state of depression after her husband's infidelity and her mother's passing. She never knew her father, and is surprised to find his journal when she is cleaning out her mother's place. The journal reveals that her father was an African student studying in London and who boarded with her mother's family. Anna feels a closeness with the man in the journal who describes the racism that she too has felt, but had never been able to talk about with her mother. Her curiosity leads her to track down her father, and it turns out that he is the leader of his nation.

Anna ends up traveling to the country and eventually making contact with her father and half-siblings. She finds it hard to reconcile the powerful man in front of her with the idealistic young man in the journal. The ways in which his identity changed as he gained power and influence are the most obvious parts of the story, but Anna's own shift is presented more subtly. She gains her own strength and conviction as she has a chance to walk in the world knowing more about her background. She no longer depends on her husband to lead the way, but instead, chooses her own path. Identity becomes not just what one is made of, but how one chooses to wield it in life.

I am always really impressed by a book that manages to keep me turning the pages even when it is relatively slow-paced. I was immediately hooked by the discovery of Francis' diary, and the story picks up pace again when Anna heads to Bamana, but even in the slower middle zone between those movements, I found myself intrigued by Anna's inner world and her own excitement at discovering more about her father. I haven't read anything quite like this in a long time. I thought it was well balanced between character, plot, and atmosphere. I think this will be popular at my library amongst my patrons who enjoy literary fiction, stories about middle-aged female protagonists, and those who enjoy international settings.

I have had Welcome to Lagos on my Want to Read list for a while since it was named a Belletrist book, so when I saw the opportunity to read a new novel by Chibundu Onuzo I was intrigued. Sankofa is about a middle-aged woman who discovers the diary of the father she never knew in her mother’s belongings after she passes. She learns her father became a president of an African country and she travels to meet him for the first time.

This story had an interesting plot, but I did not connect well with the characters. The protagonist, Anna, was very boring to me. All of the dialogue came off very monotoned and I felt the overall mood was very “blah”. Anytime Anna would say something I would imagine the Debbie Downer noise. She wasn’t someone I felt compelled to root for.

There was much to think deeply about while reading this book such as the identity struggles of a mixed-race person which I found very eye-opening to read about. I just finished reading Somebody’s Daughter and felt that this was hard to follow up regarding the relationship with an absent father, but since he was a huge political figure that made it something different to explore. There were a lot of politics discussed but much of it went over my head. I also think there were many facets of Anna’s character that were only surface level and never fully explored that made it seem like this book was a little all over the place and lacking focus.

I know this is a work of fiction and a unique story that could not exist otherwise, but I think I would have enjoyed this more if it was about a real country and offered the opportunity to learn about a different culture and history. But as it was, it just fell flat for me and was overall disappointing.

Sankofa was one of my favorite books of 2021! I loved the main character and having most of the book be set in Ghana was super interesting.

fiction, family-dynamics, cultural-exploration, cultural-heritage, London, West Africa*****

Anna is searching for her roots in a land where her heritage does not make some people shame her with their careless inhumanity. An only child raised by her British mother and whose African father never even knew of her, Anna is in deep distress at 48 when her mother dies of a brain cancer and she is also in the middle of a divorce which is encouraged by her own daughter. After finding and reading the journals written by her father before he left to go back to his homeland, she goes there on a quest to find him. And herself. Very moving and well written but difficult to face the thoughtless cruelty of others.
I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy from Catapult via NetGalley, Thank you!

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with this arc in exchange for an honest review.
This book was so beautifully written all the way through, there was no way I wasn’t gonna be hooked. I loved every page, every word. Anna was such an interesting character to read mostly because she is an older woman who has lived her life and to see that different perspective is very refreshing.
I cannot wait for more people to read this!

This was an interesting read, and I look forward to reading more by this author. I loved the writing style, and was definitely drawn to the cover art.

This book had me hooked from page 1. The main character, Anna, is at a crossroads in her life--her mother has just died, her daughter is grown, and her husband has cheated on her and she's asked him to leave--and she has no career or friends to fall back on. This mixed-race daughter of a while Englishwoman and an African father she's never met finds her father's journal hidden in her mother's belongings and it sends her on a journey to find him. What she discovers about him, and the journey that leads her to take, to a small, evolving African country, leads to an awakening, growth, and experiences she could never have imagined. Thoughtful, detail-filled, and evocative, I stayed up late to finish this book. The ending was surprising and not at all what I expected, not 100% sure it will work for all readers, but it worked for me. I will look at this author's other books. Recommended.

After her mother's death, a British woman reads a diary left by the father she never knew - a university student who returned to his small African homeland and became a dictatorial president. As a middle-aged woman at loose ends due to a failed marriage and stalled career, Anna decides to travel to Africa to find him.

This introspective character drama explores identity and belonging through the experiences of a biracial woman raised in England by a white mother, who was well-meaning yet in denial of the racism her daughter faced. Meanwhile in Africa, Anna is considered an obroni - a white foreigner. A visit to a slave fort highlights differing reactions of the American tourists with the Africans and Anna herself. ("Our ancestors had not been sold.") The complexities and contrasts of post-colonial Africa - in the fictional country of Bamana - are also examined as Anna tries to reconcile the image of the idealistic man who wrote the diary with the leader he became.

An insightful journey of self-discovery in an interesting setting.

Thanks to NetGalley and Catapult for an ARC of this book.

I’ve found it difficult to review Sankofa. It was a page-turner and the premise of the story sticks with me, yet it was ultimately so problematic that I can’t really say whether I enjoyed it or not.

The good: I liked the main character, Anna, and felt for her position as a mixed-race person in an all-white family that didn’t really try to understand her feelings. As the aunt of mixed-race nieces, I always appreciate hearing from mixed-race voices, especially female ones; that’s not a viewpoint we get to hear from a lot in the bookish world. Also, the story moved along at a brisk pace. The main character’s actions were abrupt and not very well planned out and the story reflected that feeling, as it should.

The bad: I’m more than willing to suspend reality for a good story, but this was not science fiction. For the main character to go from where she was at the beginning of the story to where she was at the end of the story in such a short time was just a little too rash for me. It was incredibly poor decision making and showed no personal growth at all, despite how hard the author tried to push the fact that Anna had changed and grown during her experience. She didn't satisfactorily complete the story arc she attempted.

Also, the author made a big deal about several side-stories and secondary characters, only to drop them suddenly, going nowhere. For example, Ken was a vaguely menacing figure that kept popping up everywhere and seemed to be significant, but turned out to be completely meaningless. The daughter’s eating disorder is another example. Again, don't start something you can't finish, especially when there is no need to start it.

In the end, I have to say that Sankofa was worth the read, but only a 3 ½ star book for me.

Sankofa follows Anna, whose mother has recently passed away as she discovers her heritage, herself, and her father who she never knew. She uses a diary that she found to track down her African father, who is a different person in life then he is in his diary.

The writing was engaging and pulled me into the story. It was a fast paced and easy read. Anna is an interesting character to follow on her journey. The characters that this book is mainly about are both interesting and complex characters. Anna and her father are both characters that are shown as having some contradictions to their behavior, which many real people have themselves. I also really enjoyed the the discussions of race, class, ethnocentrism, and identity. However, I did wish that some of these topics were discussed a bit deeper. Overall, I thought this was good book with some complex characters.

I would like to thank Catapult for providing me with an ARC.

I adored this story about a woman searching for her lost father. It is full of discovery and learning your heritage and where you come from. I cried, so much. Thank you for this arc.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.
I loved this book and its main character, Anna, is someone who will stay with me for a long time. If you like a good father-daughter story this book is for you. There are not too many out there that confront the adult daughter as she gets to know her father first as an adult. This book as a special spin, in that she also gets to know her father as a young man thanks to his journals. Reconciling both men becomes a huge part of this novel. This book is one that will appeal to a wide audience - the quest to find our place in this world is a journey and she takes both a real and metaphorical trip to the past to inform her present situation. Anyone who has ever felt they don’t belong will relate to Anna’s situation. The writing is so compelling that I finished this book in one day. I needed to know the resolution. Anna’s childhood as a biracial child growing up in the UK with her white mother was described gently but its effects are evident in her current life as a woman facing midlife alone – her husband has left, her daughter is grown and her mother has died. We are all faced with this phase of life at some point and how she navigates information discovered about her father is suspenseful and makes for a great story. I really appreciated learning more about colonial Britain and its African colonies through her timeline. There was no preachy or dogmatic tone to any of this. We discover, alongside Anna, lots of African history and culture that I feel better for knowing. The author’s descriptions of Banama made it really come alive for me (even though it is fictional…) The writing in this book is excellent; so effortless to read that I didn’t really notice it. I was intrigued by the mystery, the story, and getting to know Anna herself. She is so REAL; not an entirely lovable character, but I was rooting for her the entire time. This is a book about race and belonging and the universal quest to find our place and do our best in an imperfect world. The ending was very satisfying. I would rate this in the top 10 books I’ve read so far this year. It has it all! I will be awaiting Onuzo’s next book with great anticipation. - Mary

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. I wanted to like this book but it really didn’t work for me. The book focuses on Anna, a mixed race, middle-age woman living in London whose mom has recently passed away, and she discovers a diary from the father she never knew. She decides to research him and discovers he was an independence fight and later, a president of an African country, Bamana; his reign had both highs and lows. Anna decides to travel to Bamana to meet her father, Kofi. That is essentially the plot of the book — as readers, we are along for the journey as Anna discovers more about her father and his, and now her, country.

I simply couldn’t get into the book. As a protagonist, I found Anna unlikable, frustrating, and contradictory. She was a middle-aged woman with a 25-year-old daughter, but her decision making felt like she was a preteen. She had an incredibly limited circle of people close to her in London, with no apparent interest to be sociable, and yet we are to believe she was comfortable flying to another continent with hardly any sense of what to expect? She seemed like a cautious and timid woman in London, and yet in Bamana she agreed to meet new people and go to unknown places and stay in the country longer without any sense of what she was in for. Had her character been someone who was more comfortable embracing spontaneity, this would be perfect - but that is not who Anna was portrayed as. And yet, when she had time alone with her father, multiple times she provoked this stranger by bringing up topics of conversation that she knew were unsettling or disparaging. She didn’t appear vulnerable, or scared, or excited, or disappointed by meeting her father, and without any sense of her feelings, it was difficult to root for her and her father to build a relationship.

The longer she stayed in Bamana, the less realistic the book felt. Sadly this one didn’t resonate with me.