Of course, I've always been horrified reading stories about the slave trade and the deadly journey across the Atlantic. This story starts with a journalist living in the U.S. who returns to Ghana for a 400-year commemoration of the first Africans being taken to Virginia. She brings friends, one of whom seems to be psychically sensitive. Adwapa feels her own unease but is shocked to see the spirits of the dead walking out of the ocean.
This becomes an international phenomenon, and some of the spirits possess the living. What are they doing here? Do they want something?
Even though this is a short book, it really packed a punch, and I still feel haunted.

The Year of Return by Ivana Akotowaa Ofori, is a unique and interesting story that grips the readers shortly after they start reading, , I have to admit it does take a little bit to get into the story. But once the readers get passed the first couple of chapters or so, the story picks up its place and the readers are taken for a hauntingly, poignant, telling of some of the worst atrocities man has done to our fellow man, but still hope for a better future lives on in our descendants. This book will hold you in fear, and make you believe in miracles all at the same time.

The Year of Return is a well written novella and is one of those books that makes you think about ancestral connections to those of us in the here and now. It’s a wonderfully written novella with a big message and a hard impact, a journalist, is going home for the holidays with three of her friends to visit with her mom, a hard non nonsense doctor. Her home is Ghana. As she is on the ship before docking, she sees a site that she can’t believe. A ghostly image of a black person naked and walking on the water. As days go by, a phenomenon begins to happen where more ghostly figures, the Coasters, are emerging from the coastal waters and heading into town, some looking for hosts. I will not say why as it is a big part of this story. The historical part of the journey happens here and it is tragic and beyond any comprehension as to the lengths white people have gone to enslave black citizens of Ghana and other countries.
I enjoyed all the characters, each with their own relationship to the story. I felt the pain of The Coasters and the absolute terror they felt.
I hands down would recommend this novella. It’s is part ghostly, supernatural and with a historical edge to it

This was a beautifully written and heartbreaking novella. The parallels between the trauma of colonialism and slavery to the pandemic were brilliant and effective.

Electric

What else to say? The horror here, if that’s what you’re looking for, is the horror of the Middle Passage, the pain, the fear, the despair.

It’s a hard read for that reason. Do you wish you could have witnessed, to have experienced it?

No, you really don’t.

Effective novella, I’ll give it that.

In The Year of Return, Ofori introduces us to Adwapa, a Ghanaian journalist living in America, who’s back home when a strange phenomenon occurs that turns the world on its head.

The story takes place between December 2019 and Spring 2020 - a direct reference to the beginning of the COVID pandemic and the protests that took place in summer of 2020 - and covers the deep-seated generational trauma that’s still present from slavery, and how racism still affects us today.

It’s a powerful story considering its low page count, and as a black American who has not only experienced racism first-hand, but witnessed it in my family and community, it really hits home.

4.5 stars

Plot: 🇬🇭 Ghana - 2019
Adwapa, a 26-year-old Ghanian journalist living in the US, returns to her homeland to document the eerie paranormal apparitions appearing over the ocean.

This story follows the discovery of the apparitions as ancestral slaves, or 'Coasters', taken 400 years ago to Virginia, now returning in plain sight to rectify their unheard voices. Their appearance is global, creating shock waves of unravelling grief and truth.

"When Coasters walk away, we're left feeling like something is deeply wrong with the world and that we can't bear to continue being part of the problem. They spur us into action."

Thoughts: Ofori writes beautifully, and I'm really grateful to have come across a book from a culture I've never read/heard anything about! I was curious to look up Ghana's culture, political history and opted to translate a few of the phrases in the book. I love that the language (Twi) was incorporated as a flavour of this part of the world.

I enjoyed the characters' playfulness and warmth. Adwapa's friend Oneisha had a hyperempathic ability with spirits and people, which really catered to a softening depth of spiritual understanding to the nature of the paranormal grief.

The historical reimagining through the eerie parallels of the impacts of Covid, brought many of those similar conflicts to light. The disbelief, conspiracies, the global lockdowns, and familial rifts. The Year of Return stirs the collective unconscious to address the historical injustices and cruelties of slavery, in order to move forward with appropriate societal modifications.

My only wish were that I could read more, as the journey felt brief!

Thank you to Netgalley, Ivana Akotowaa Ofori and Android Press/ BookBuzz.net for this advanced copy! Also big thanks to the publishers for my NetGalley auto-approval !

What a clever little story this is! I want to get a million copies and put this in the hands of everyone, but especially white folks (like myself) so they can begin to understand that generational, racist trauma stems deep. Ivana Akotowaa Ofori does a brilliant job of bringing together many of the key events during the height of the COVID pandemic and putting them in a science fiction short story that anyone could relate to.

From the lockdowns (where we saw the privileged of society whine the most), to disproportionately increased Asian discrimination, to Black Lives Matter protests; Ofori brings these elements together and uses them to show the generational trauma from African slavery. It’s so smart to take feelings we (as a world) have recently felt and change them subtly enough such that the reader can start (at least) to understand (or hopefully appreciate) some of the trauma involved in continuing (forever and ever) to atone for slavery. The weaving of this story brings elements together so well that it’s impossible (in my opinion as a white girl, for whatever that is worth) to deny the huge weight slavery still has today, especially on a population subject to diaspora around the world.

Ofori gives us a relatable main character with a degree in African Studies, from an Ivy League university (something her Ghana mother thinks is ridiculous) who is now a journalist. This gives our leading gal the ability to report on the many theories of the odd appearance of ‘ghosts’ and use the Internet to compile sightings, research, and provide her own theory and commentary on what is happening in the story. There is a cleverness to the core story that I also admire. I don’t want to say much about it as it could take away the creepiness and impact of each revelation that comes about.

This is the second short story by Ofori I have read and I am keeping my eye on her! She has an amazing way of sucking the reader into the story and feeling instant empathy for the characters and situation. If anyone can make people start to understand, even a fraction, of the trauma POC have experienced between generations of trauma, and the awful racism of today, I believe Ofori has the magic in her writing. Her stories and characters are relatable and current in a way I have not experienced before. I would put this story in the hands of every single white person in the world if I could, and even if only 1% of them started to think more about the long term, never going away, trauma of slavery then it would be well worth the effort.
Watch this writer! She has talent and I cannot wait to see what she brings us in the future.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

For the size of this book, it does pack quite a punch with a low page count.

Honestly, it was utterly genius to have the 'Coasters' appearing in December 2019 and act as a sort of spiritual pandemic. How people, government and social media reacted to the phenomenon was so depressingly realistic that I had to chuckle (just so I wouldn't cry!).

Ofori did a fantastic job developing the main characters and making them feel like real people in such a short amount of time.

The concept of the book is fairly simple but does expertly drive home the extent of damage done by slavery, colonialism and racism that is still felt to this day.

As a white person, I can't say I feel bad for any of the white people at the end of the book. And that's all I'll say about that.