and Jane Link

Borne out of her doctoral research on the West African Student Union of 1920s London, Sankofa marks a departure from Chibundu Onuzo’s first two novels which are rooted in the urban tales of Lagos. In this interview, Onuzo shares that writing never seemed like a viable profession growing up and what it’s like for a non-planner to fashion a novel out of a PhD.

How has publication week been? Are things getting back to ‘normal’ as far as book launches go?

The book came out on Thursday so we’re right at the beginning. I’m looking forward to what the future holds. Covid has definitely affected it because, for my first two books, I had an in-person launch. This time I was on Zoom for almost everything. And at most of the events I’m doing, even when they are live, there is no audience.

How long did it take you to write Sankofa?

It took about four years, maybe five. I was doing it alongside my PhD, so I wasn’t racing through it in that time. I was starting and stopping, starting and stopping.

What was it like to move between the factual and fictional?

They complemented one other. The PhD research was very helpful to know what students at the time were thinking, to know what someone like Francis would have been concerned with. I drew on that research heavily when I was creating the character of Francis. The research helped with his character, whereas Anna is a different type of character, more contemporary. The fictional aspect of creating Anna’s life was very different from the PhD research that I was doing.

Bamana is a fictional country clearly modelled on Ghana with its recognisable landmarks like Cape Coast Castle and the Volta Dam. Why did you invent a country?

Part of the reason I’m interested in Ghana is because it has a very real history. So yes, setting it in a real place would make it more difficult because real places have their own histories. If someone says the first Prime Minister of Ghana, you will instantly think of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. It made sense to make the country fictional, also because Bamana draws heavily on both Ghana and other African countries. I was also trying to say that the story of Bamana could be the story of any other post-independence African country, particularly with that idea of squandered hope. You had these idealistic post-independence leaders with their grand dreams and visions that were going to lead us into the promised land. Where did it go wrong?

You started writing seriously at age 10 and are the youngest woman ever to have been published by Faber & Faber. Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?

I didn’t know that you could be a writer as a full-time job! I had some examples of people who had published books, but they would often do that alongside a day job. In Nigeria, we do celebrate our writers like Chinua Achebe, Wọlé Ṣóyíinká, and more recently Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. At the same time, we have this social pragmatism which says the arts don’t make you money: if you want to make art, go ahead, but you need to have a day job. I remember at the age of 10, I used to say I wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor, but I would always be writing at night or in the evenings. Writing was the dream. And then I moved here. Having a degree of success at a younger age meant that I could pursue it, so that’s what I did.

Your characters are very distinct and you write them with so much compassion. What’s the process like

I am not a planner. I don’t start the novel knowing where it’s going to end. I started with Anna and Francis. But, for example, with Anna’s husband, Robert, I knew I didn’t want Anna to actively be in a marriage because if she was more rooted, it would be more difficult for her to take off from England at 48 to find her father. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her husband to be dead [collective laughter], or if I wanted him to be in the picture. I separated them in the end. It’s the same story with Anna’s daughter. I had to make her daughter an age where Anna would be able to leave London without any cares. Anna had to be at a place in her life where she’d be able to just say: “I have nothing to lose. I have nothing holding me down in London. Let me go and find this man.”

Did someone inspire that man or is it, like with the story of Bamana, any post-independence leader?

It could be anyone. He is a blend of so many different things I’ve read, and I guess, things I’ve imagined.

The Back-to-Africa movement is having a moment with Ghana’s Year of Return campaign. Did this zeitgeist influence Sankofa, or is it just a complete coincidence?

[Pauses] I started the novel before Ghana’s year of return. But, sometimes, when things are seen to be coincidental, it’s actually because there’s a feeling in the air. For many years, the African diaspora has been increasingly looking back to the continent. It’s been gathering momentum, slowly and slowly, even though this formal government push is more recent. For instance, Maya Angelou lived in Ghana decades ago. There is a long history of the African diaspora coming back to the African continent. The story’s been here.

Is it Anna’s story?

She’s not going back to find a culture. If you’re from the societies in which Africans were taken across as slaves, you’re returning to find your culture. Anna just really wants to know who her father is. The culture is secondary, but along the way, she might learn a thing or two about it.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her life so far spans two military dictatorships, one internet revolution, two boarding schools, five grandmothers and a first book deal signed at nineteen. Chibundu’s first novel, The Spider King’s Daughter, was published by Faber in 2012 and was the winner of a Betty Trask Award, shorted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and Etisalat Literature Prize. Her second novel, Welcome to Lagos, was published by Faber in 2017 and shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award. In 2018 Chibundu was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, as part of its “40 Under 40” initiative. She contributes regularly to the Guardian, has done a talk for Tedx and her autobiographical show 1991, featuring narrative, music, song and dance, premiered in a sell-out show at Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival in 2018. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @chinbunduonuzo.

JANE LINK is the founder of bigblackbooks. She is also a publishing professional holding two master’s in literature from The University of Edinburgh and SOAS. Find her on Twitter @verybookishjane.

Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo
Published by Virago on 3 June 2021
Genres: Literary fiction, Mystery
Pages: 304
Goodreads

Anna grew up in England with her white mother and knowing very little about her African father. In middle age, after separating from her husband and losing her mother, Anna finds her father's student diaries, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. She discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say the dictator—of the West African country of Bamana. And he is still alive. Anna decides to track him down and her journey will lead her to a new understanding of both her past and her potential future, as well as an exploration of race, identity, and what we pass on to our children.