The Deep

This is a folktale of the wajinru, deep-water-dwelling descendants of the pregnant African slaves who were thrown overboard during the years of the slave trade from Africa to the Western Hemisphere. The prose is lyrical and beautifully descriptive, and the story touches on themes of how dealing with, or ignoring, the painful aspects of the past can help us move forward or stagnate as human beings. There's an element of "The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas" here, with a Chosen One who bears the pain so that the rest of their society may be spared from it -- with the implications and ethics which go along with a society abdicating that burden to a designated scapegoat so that others do not have to deal with it.

As a folktale, this is successful; as a complete story with a coherent plot and worldbuilding, it is less satisfying, reading more like a children's book than a full-fledged novella.