Yaa Gyasi

Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader's wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. 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.

Homegoing

Shahab Valizadeh

begun to seem to him like a word the white men brought with them when they first came to Africa. A trick their Christians had learned and spoke loudly and freely about to the people of the Gold Coast. Forgive- ness, they shouted, all the while committing their wrongs.

The need to call this thing "good" and this thing "bad," this thing "white" and this thing "black," was an impulse that Effia did not under- stand. 

Laura Wilson

“You want to know what weakness is? Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves." 

You can learn anything when you have to learn it. You could learn to fly if it meant you would live another day.

Tiana Coates

Then next time bring more water, but don’t cry for this time. There should be no room in your life for regret. If in the moment of doing you felt clarity, you felt certainty, then why feel regret later?

A lioness. She mates with her lion and he thinks the moment is about him when it is really about her, her children, her posterity. Her trick is to make him think that he is king of the bush, but what does a king matter? Really, she is king and queen and everything in between.

Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.

One of Oprah’s Best Books of the Year and a PEN/Hemingway award winner, Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.

sage lynn

It's not just because I'm scared of drowning. Though I guess I am. It's because of all that space. It's because everywhere I look, I see blue, and I have no idea where it begins. When I'm out there, I stay as close as I can to the sand, because at least then I know where it ends.

How could he explain to Marjorie that what he wanted to capture with his project was the feeling of time, of having been a part of something that stretched so far back, was impossibly large, that it was easy to forget that she, and he, and everyone else, existed in it--not apart from it, but inside of it.

Marcus thought about that day often. He was still amazed by it. Not by the fear he'd felt throughout the day, when the woman who was no more than a stranger to him had dragged him farther and farther from home, but by the fullness of love and protection he'd felt later, when his family had finally found him. Not the being lost, but the being found. It was the same feeling he got whenever he saw Marjorie. Like she had somehow, found him.

And Esi knew, too, that her mother would die rather than run into the woods ever again, die before capture, die even if it meant that in her dying, Esi would inherit that unspeakable sense of loss, learn what it meant to be un-whole.

“Love her,” Cobbe commanded, as though love were as simple an act as lifting food up from an iron plate and past one’s lips.

Hell was a place of remembering, each beautiful moment passed through the mind’s eye until it fell to the ground like a rotten mango, perfectly useless, uselessly perfect.

Muhamad Omarji

I’m stunned. Gyasi has narrated pain and beauty beyond compare. Her words have been thwarting, warming, harrowing and healing. I wish I could write like Yaa Gyasi.

Honourable mention tysvvvm Shahab and Charlotte <3

Lily Cooper

I’m stunned. Gyasi has narrated pain and beauty beyond compare. Her words have been thwarting, warming, harrowing and healing. I wish I could write like Yaa Gyasi.

Honourable mention tysvvvm Shahab and Charlotte <3

I am in awe of this book. Gyasi beautifully entraps you in the generational consequences of the slave trade. The novel grapples with the notion of identity and what it truly means to belong. The novel allows you to become entrapped in each generation and keeps you in a chokehold.

Maureen

If you enjoyed the exploration of generational trauma in Marquez’s A Hundred Years of Solitude, you’ll surely love this book too. It traces the descendants of two half sisters with polar opposite fates through eight generations. Gyasi’s writing hooks you so much that it’s incredible to think this was her debut novel. 

While, as outsiders, we may never fully grasp the depths of racial trauma induced by their captivity, it’s essential to develop an awareness of how their indelible experiences have shaped the formation of one of the most powerful nations we know today.

Mathieu Schwab

An absolute masterpiece of family across generations

Chris Dailey

Ambitious arc that traces the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave trade from inception to today. Structured as the POV of each generation of Fantes from West Africa starting with a pair of half sisters - one that marries a British Governor and the other sold as a slave - and ending with two young Black Americans. The novel is a knotted and connected series of short stories of historical fiction with the descendants as lens into different struggles and triumphs, although fewer of the latter. Deeply personal characters that intimately share their thoughts and concerns that go beyond their immediate dangers of racism, crime and bodily harm. They all deal with love, jealously, betrayal, parenthood and identity. Simultaneously inward and epic, this is a triumph of creativity.

Princess Doe 

I have not even finished reading it, and I know that this book is going to be in my favourites of all time. Such a well-written book that accurately depicts the experiences of Africans and Black people as a whole throughout history, and not in a cliche way either. As a daughter of Ghanian parents who immigrated to North America, I feel a certain connection with a book. It's as if it fills the missing pieces that I have been looking for when trying to figure out who I am as a person. Absolutely in love ❤️every person should read this, white or black.

Megan Parrott

Wow. This is a remarkable debut. Yaa Gyasi's intertwining stories are beautiful and heartbreaking. I can't wait to see more from her.

Ryan Mateyk

I love family sagas and I honestly wish this one was longer. It weaves the stories of various generations of a family through separations and migrations and an eventual reunion. It was beautiful and painful and definitely worth a read.

Grace Edwards

This is in a league of its own. Unique, ambitious, and demanding of a reader's heart and attention. I only wish I had more time with each character.

elizabeth

This is in a league of its own. Unique, ambitious, and demanding of a reader's heart and attention. I only wish I had more time with each character.

Required reading.

i did not think i was gonna finish this at first LOL, reminded me so much of half of a yellow sun. it was tough, it was beautiful, it was haunting, and it made me miss nigeria in a way i haven't in a long time! the past is definitely closer than we think.

Janet Akisanmi

Allison Dempsey

I really wanted to like this, but the format of it ended up being too much. Each chapter ended up being a short story with very minor connections to the chapter before it, and there really was not enough time for proper character development.

Dominic Hoffman

Marcy Pursell 

This was a slow book for me, but I liked it. I absolutely loved the ending, and you understand the way the story gets weaved from beginning to end, really full circle, with points of view switching from generation to generation. It was well written, and well narrated. The narrator had an African accent in the earlier POVs, and as the later generations were American, the accents changed and developed.

Kendall McClain

Ava Luke

azliana aziz

yaa gyasi is a gifted writer. 
what is really striking in HOMEGOING for me is how she effortlessly write multi perspectives and giving distinct, lived in voices to each of her characters. reading this book made me understand so much more about black rage and how every little things we did or did not get involved in it will still affect us and everyone else too. those ripple effects can be damaging whether we want/acknowledge of it.


Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader's wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. 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.

hileahrious

Lila R E

if you need a reason to hate white people this book will be it. 

otherwise a masterpiece, could not recommend enough.

Desiree Young

This book is exactly what I needed right now !!!

I cannot believe this book was only 300 pages and managed to accomplish so much. Not a single word is wasted, and it feels like a book I could reread again and again to pick apart all the little details and symbolism that the author included. There are no less than 14 POV characters in this book and every single one feels like a distinct, fully realized person. I loved seeing how each generation of characters built upon the last and served as a snapshot of their own time period. 

I’m having to hold myself back from writing a full essay about this book, so I’ll just say: it’s absolutely worth the read.

Cloudface

I cannot believe this book was only 300 pages and managed to accomplish so much. Not a single word is wasted, and it feels like a book I could reread again and again to pick apart all the little details and symbolism that the author included. There are no less than 14 POV characters in this book and every single one feels like a distinct, fully realized person. I loved seeing how each generation of characters built upon the last and served as a snapshot of their own time period. 
I’m having to hold myself back from writing a full essay about this book, so I’ll just say: it’s absolutely worth the read.

Reyna Mendoza

A new favorite! Takes you on an incredible journey.

Expertly written, an all encompassing fast paced read. It's fascinating to watch two sisters' bloodlines dovetail throughout history.

Katelyn Caillouet

Beatrice

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

By far one of the best books I've read this year, Homegoing's wide praise is definitely well deserved. This book follows the story of two half sisters, Effia and Esi, who will never meet and will live lives at their opposites: Esi becomes a spoil of war during long-standing tribal disputes and is eventually sold into slavery; while Effia marries a British governor and slaver and lives her whole life in Ghana. From this starting point, we are slowly drawn into an incredibly well-constructed story, following the descendants of both sisters as the family's history unfolds before our eyes.

I tend to enjoy reading family sagas, mainly due to my love of characters and the fact that we usually get to delve deep into internal dynamics, examine relationships and discover hidden secrets. Lots of drama in families. But this book takes it a step further: we follow these families for the beauty of six descendants each, spanning centuries. That's an incredibly ambitious project, and one that fully hits its target.

I'll admit, I was a bit sceptical at first when I noticed the narrative style: each chapter is narrated by a different descendant, alternating between Effia's and Esi's, and jumping (sometimes substantially) forward in the timeline. I was afraid this would quickly become confusing or leave too many plot holes. I was happily contradicted. Notwithstanding the terrible formatting of my review copy (the beginning and ending of each chapter were never indicated, so I actually had to guess who the next narrator was, and indeed that the previous chapter had ended, from the change in register... oh well, it was an arc after all!), I was never confused and all my doubts and questions were somehow always answered! Even though they had a very limited time at their disposal, characters are all extremely well-rounded and I easily grew attached to them. They are often faced with incredibly difficult situations and live in periods of great social and political turmoil, which of course influences their decisions and their fate.

Speaking of which, I also really enjoyed the historical aspect of the book. Slavery and colonialism are incredibly dark pages of human history, which far too often we prefer to ignore, as if we could forget they ever happened at all. Luckily, writers like Yaa Gyasi are there to remind us that, right up to modern times, we are living with the consequences of the choices that were made so many years ago. I particularly appreciated being able to read about the situation both in the USA and in Ghana: it is rare to read a book that isn't focused solely on a Western perspective of history, and for this Homegoing is even more precious. It seems as if the author took the advice of her own characters:

"We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there you get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture."

Overall, Homegoing is an extremely powerful and gripping novel, masterfully combining family, history and social issues tied together by an excellent writing style, leaving you with a book that is over way too quickly, but will likely stay with you for a very long time.

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Homegoing

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