Homegoing

Trade Paperback, 320 pages

English language

Published April 8, 2017 by Vintage Books.

ISBN:
978-1-101-97106-2
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
989489858

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5 stars (2 reviews)

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.

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.

Source: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533857/homegoing-by-yaa-gyasi/

22 editions

Stimulating and Entrancing

5 stars

This book gripped me immediately. A wonderfully written dive into how the slave trade effected and shaped not just the Americas, but also the land the slaves came from. I was enamored in how each generation built on the tragedy and triumphs of the previous generations. I also honestly appreciated that the book wasn't the equivalent of trauma porn, with moments of joy and achievement throughout.

I remember I finished this book on my lunch break at work, and I literally gasped in joy at the ending, as I felt it was the best way that things could have ended.

This book brought me so much joy, as well as great insight into the Black experience through the years and how each historical era changed things.

I've been verbally recommending this book to everyone, and now I'll do it online too.

Review of 'Homegoing' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This was not what I was expecting. I had been putting it off because even though everyone loved it, I had gotten the impression that this was a heavy literary novel. It isn't that at all. It is pretty standard historical fiction. (That's a good thing in my world.)

Two half-sisters in Ghana start the story. One stays in Ghana and marries a British man. The other is sold into slavery by that British man. One member of each generation tells their story up until the present.

Everyone is right. It really is good. Go read it.