Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey --- one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be.

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From here on in, she would be known as Sankofa --- a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks --- alone, except for her fox companion --- searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged, searching for answers. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?