Homegoing

Homegoing is a novel I wish I could have read when I was a young woman. An intelligent, beautiful and healing read, destined to become a classic -- Zadie Smith 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 * 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 * [A] commanding debut . . . will stay with you long after you've finished reading. When people talk about all the things fiction can teach its readers, they're talking about books like this * Marie Claire * Rarely does a grand, sweeping epic plumb interior lives so thoroughly. Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing is a marvel. -- Dave Wheeler, associate editor, Shelf Awareness Homegoing is an epic novel in every sense of the word - spanning three centuries, Homegoing is a sweeping account of two half-sisters in 18th-century Ghana and the lives of their many generations of descendants in America. A stunning, unforgettable account of family, history, and racism, Homegoing is an ambitious work that lives up to the hype. * Buzzfeed * Gyasi gives voice, and an empathetic ear, to the ensuing seven generations of flawed and deeply human descendants, creating a patchwork mastery of historical fiction * Elle * Gyasi echoes [James] Baldwin's understanding of a common culture marked by both yearning and pain, in which black people can confront each other across differences and reach a political understanding about what unites them. What distinguishes Gyasi's presentation of this idea is its scope: She does not present us with a single moment, but rather delivers a multigenerational saga in which two branches of a family, separated by slavery and time, emerge from the murk of history in a romantic embrace . . . . . Homegoing is a reminder of the tenacity of fathers and mothers who struggle to keep their kin alive. The novel succeeds when it retrieves individual lives from the oblivion mandated by racism and spins the story of the family's struggle to survive. * Bookforum * A memorable epic of changing families and changing nations * Chicago Tribune * Epic...astonishing...page-turning * Entertainment Weekly * Yaa Gyasi establishes herself as an exciting new literary voice with a powerful debut * BookPage * A hypnotic debut novel by... a stirringly gifted young writer * New York Times Book Review * Tremendous...spectacular...[Homegoing is] essential reading from a young writer whose stellar instincts, st

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.