A woman wondering who she really is goes in search of a father she
never knew--only to find something far more complicated than she ever
expected--in this "stirring narrative about family, our capacity
to change and the need to belong" (Time).
Anna is at a stage
of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. In her
40s, 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.
Examining freedom,
prejudice, and personal and public inheritance, Sankofa is a
story for anyone who has ever gone looking for a clear identity or
home, and found something more complex in its place.