Aba Amissah Asibon, with her manuscript-in-progress, Ananseland, is a 2023 New Voices writer. Congratulations, Aba.

Ananseland centres on the Paintsil family, whose idyllic American lives are upended when their patriarch decides to run for political office in his native Ghana. Feeling a strong sense of duty to his motherland, Ato Paintsil returns home only to find himself caught in a system fraught with snares and roadblocks. His American wife, Olivia, concurrently embarks on her own journey to assimilate into Ghanaian high society. Together with their children, they navigate their newly-politicised reality while grappling with the concept of home. The Paintsils must eventually make some life-altering decisions when Ato gets embroiled in a scandal that threatens their safety.

About Aba: Aba is a Ghanaian writer whose short fiction has been published in Guernica, Adda, The Johannesburg Review of Books and Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa. She has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship. When Aba isn’ writing, she works on public health initiatives geared towards improving healthcare for mothers and babies.