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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Number of Pages: 305
Audiobook narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Goodreads rating: 4.46
Published on: 2016
Description:
The unforgettable New York Times bestseller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indelibly drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day.
Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.
Praise for Homegoing
“Homegoing is a remarkable feat—a novel at once epic and intimate, capturing the moral weight of history as it bears down on individual struggles, hopes, and fears. A tremendous debut.” -—Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment
Quotes from Homegoing
“The family is like the forest: if you are outside it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position.”
“No one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free.”
About the Author:
Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian-American novelist. She wrote her debut novel Homegoing at the age of 26, which has won her numerous awards including The PEN/Hemingway Award.
Other books from Yaa Gyasi:
Transcendent Kingdom
Author’s interview: Yaa Gyasi about Homegoing and more
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