LoveReading Says
Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel - the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself. Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portraits, Homegoing is a searing and profound debut from a masterly new writer.
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Homegoing Synopsis
A novel of exceptional scope and sweeping vision that traces the descendants of two sisters across three hundred years in Ghana and America.A riveting kaleidoscopic debut novel and the beginning of a major career: Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing is a novel about race, history, ancestry, love and time, charting the course of two sisters torn apart in 18th century Africa through to the present day. Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonist, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising "e;half-caste"e; children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath Effia in the Castle's women's dungeon, before being shipped off on a boat bound for America, where she will be sold into slavery. Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi has written a modern masterpiece, a novel that moves through histories and geographies and--with outstanding economy and force--captures the intricacies of the troubled yet hopeful human spirit.
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Yaa Gyasi Press Reviews
'Shows the unmistakable touch of a gifted writer' The New Yorker
'One of the richest, most rewarding reads of 2016' Elle
'Homegoing is one hell of a book... I recommend Homegoing without reservation. Definitely a must read for 2016.' -- Roxane Gay
'I think I needed to read a book like this to remember what is possible. I think I needed to remember what happens when you pair a gifted literary mind to an epic task. Homegoing is an inspiration' -- Ta-Nehisi Coates, National Book Award winning author of 'Between the World and Me
Wildly ambitious debut by a 26-year-old writer ... It's impossible not to admire the ambition and scope of Homegoing ... By its conclusion, the characters tales of loss and resilience have acquired an inexorable and cumulative emotional weight -- Michiko Kakutani New York Times
'A marvellous novel' Starred Publishers Weekly
'The brilliance of this structure, in which we know more than the characters do about the fate of their parents and children, pays homage to the vast scope of slavery without losing sight of its private devastation ... [Toni Morrison's] influence is palpable in Gyasi's historicity and lyricism; she shares Morrison's uncanny ability to crystalize, in a single event, slavery's moral and emotional fallout. What is uniquely Gyasi's is her ability to connect it so explicitly to the present day: No novel has better illustrated the way in which racism became institutionalized in this country.' Vogue US
About Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi was born in Mampong, Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her short stories have appeared in African American Review, Guernica and Callaloo. Homegoing is her first novel.
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