Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction. And then the rest I think is just a wild and vivid imagination.An alternate cover edition can be found here.Ī novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. And it really helped me wrap my head around what it might have been like for my characters. He took a bunch of archival research about the Cape Coast Castle, so it's a book that really just talks about what life might have been like in the castle in and around the 18th century. And a book that really helped me was The Door of No Return by William St. I like to say that my research was wide but shallow: I read a little bit of a lot of books. And I think, had I not grown up in Alabama, I don't know that I would have ever written this book. You know, coming from a country, Ghana, that had a role in slavery, and then ending up in a place where slavery is still so strongly felt institutionally, as racism is still so strongly felt. And so I think I was kind of constantly interacting, I guess, with really what the legacy of slavery is. The irony of that wasn't lost on me.Īnd then, you know, you drive 20 minutes out in any direction and Alabama is Alabama. coming from a country, Ghana, that had a role in slavery, and then ending up in a place where slavery is still so strongly felt. She tells NPR's Scott Simon, "Had I not grown up in Alabama, I don't know that I would have ever written this book."
Gyasi, 26, was born in Ghana but grew up in Huntsville, Ala. Homegoing follows each family line from Ghana to America, then through the Civil War, the coal mines of Alabama and the jazz clubs of Harlem to the present day.
Her sister Esi winds up right below her, imprisoned in the cruel squalor of the castle's dungeon, and is sold into slavery in America. Effia is married off to an Englishman (though the British soldiers call their local women "wenches" instead of wives) and she goes to live in the regal comfort of the Cape Coast Castle, which is also used to hold slaves before they were sent across the Atlantic. Half-sisters Effia and Esi were born in different villages in 18th-century Ghana. Yaa Gyasi's highly anticipated debut novel, Homegoing, follows two branches of a family tree as it grows over three centuries. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Homegoing Author Yaa Gyasi
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