I am made of the earth, flesh, ocean, blood, and bone of all the places I tried to belong to and all the people I long for.

On the bus to Kumasi, highlife and Afrobeat. In my uncle’s car, highlife. All day, my grandparents played Highlife on the radio.

Read an excerpt from ‘Aftershocks,’ by Nadia Owusu, winner of a 2019 Whiting Award for nonfiction.