"Go Back to Learn": Race, Identity, and Interpretation in Chibundu Onuzo's Sankofa

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In Sankofa , Nigerian writer Chibundu Onuzo's third novel, a mixed-race, middle-aged woman, Anna, begins to uncover her family's past and reconnects with her West African father after the death of her Welsh mother. I highlight the centrality of the West African concept of Sankofa (which refers to the need to know your history in order to be able to understand the present and move forward into the future) to both Afro-diasporic and postcolonial contexts in which people's access to their own history was taken away from them by an oppressive system. I demonstrate how Sankofa is particularly adept at rendering the protagonist's journey into the past. I also argue that the novel should be read on two levels: first, as a critique of Eurocentric racism (building on the insights of theorist of decolonization Frantz Fanon) and second, as a reflexive encouragement to readers to become careful interpreters, researchers, and critics.