In 2019, Ghana declared a Year of Return.
The invitation was extended across the African diaspora: come to Ghana. Come home. Come and reconnect with a place, a history, a people. Come and see what might be possible here.
People came.
Some came for the first time. Some returned after years away. Some came from across the diaspora and decided to stay. Some moved here. Others came and went.
And for those who were already here, the country was changing around them too.
The Year of Return became more than a moment on a calendar. It changed who was arriving, who was staying, how Ghana was being imagined, and how people living here experienced their own country.
For Tampered Press’ next anthology, we want to document what that experience has been like from the ground.
We invite submissions from Ghanaians and people of African descent living in Ghana, as well as those who came to Ghana because of the invitation of the Year of Return: visitors, returnees, new residents, old residents, people who stayed, people who left, and people still figuring out where they belong.
What did you expect Ghana to be?
What did you actually find?
What did it mean to arrive? To return? To stay?
How has living here changed the way you understand Ghana, Africa, home, or yourself?
And for those who were already here: what was it like to experience Ghana as the world was being invited in?
We are interested in the personal and the political, the ordinary and the strange. Stories of arrival and departure, belonging and alienation, expectation and disappointment, discovery and recognition. The Ghana of family houses and new developments, tro-tros and airports, workplaces and nightlife, beaches and borders, friendships and misunderstandings.
This is an invitation to document the years since the Year of Return from the perspective of the people who have lived them.
What happens when an invitation becomes a place you have to actually live?
Send us the stories, essays, poems, reflections and other forms of writing that help us answer that question.
Submit work in any of these categories:
Poetry: 2-4 poems. Submissions should include work in one file in .docx or pdf
Fiction: 4000 word limit. Submissions should include work in one file in .docx or pdf
Non-fiction: 4000 word limit.
Submissions should include work in one file in .docx or pdf