Sankofa: Learning from My Cultural History

Like Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar which has been adapted into a show on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network, I wrote the story that I wanted to read. I wrote what I would enjoy reading; what I wanted to share with others and what I hoped others would enjoy to read as well. I’d come across many people in my life and travels and therefore it was easy to create colorful characters in my head. Thankfully, I also could draw on the richness of my West African culture to make a robustly entertaining novel from a different point of view.

Reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, gave me the courage to draw on my heritage. I felt connected to her well-read story, and I, impressed by her writing, also saw that a wide range of people loved west to read about West African culture as well. Although Americanah gave me a taste of what had been missing in the books I had read before, it didn’t completely fill the void. I wanted to read about experiences like my own and specifically about my culture, which included Adinkra symbols, beautiful kente cloth and Ghana jollof.
 

Americanah proved these stories were interesting and had value and that someone would want to read them. I am also so happy to share such a big part of what has influenced me. For example, I had been fascinated by Adinkra symbols and kente cloth and their meanings forever. I also love Ghanaian food and some of the Ashanti proverbs. I want to share these with people because there’s so much to learn from each other. Hopefully, one day, there will be an abundance of books about everyone’s culture and experiences to choose from. Until then, let’s write them ourselves!

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