Book Review: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing  by Yaa Gyasi

Published by Alfred A. Knopf on June 7, 2016

Genre : Historical Fiction 

Pages: 305

Source: purchased

Yaa Gyasi debut novel  Homegoing  is  a 

testament of Black strength,  voices, and 

memory.  It's one of the most powerful novels I have ever read and since my book club picked the book as January read, I have not gone a day without thinking and marvelling about it.

The novel opens in the forests of 18th - century Ghana; through a fire accident , half sister's Effia and Esi were separated at 

birth and they  grow up in different tribes 

not knowing one another . Effia was married off to a British officer and lives with him in comfort at the Cape coast castle          ( center of  British trade on the Gold Coast) , but unknowingly to Effia, her half sister Esi was in the castle's dungeon. Esi was captured in the Fante village she grew up in due to a tribal warfare and she was later sold into slavery, which starts the 

beginning of her torturous journey to slavery in America. 

Esi thread of the story goes from the dungeon in Cape coast castle to the plantations of the south and continues through  the pathetic stories of her generations ( 9 families across 9 generations)  which spans through the American Civil war, to the coal mines of 

Pratt city Alabama and then 20th century Harlem , while Effia thread follows her 

descendants stories through warfare in Ghana as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle the slave trade and colonisation .

The novel  is an incredible look at slavery, colonialism and history . What I liked about the Novel is its character's, each has their story to tell and their own place in history. It

 talks about family and love, heartbreak, hardship and struggle. While the structure of the novel is the most interesting part of it, it was also frustrating because each chapter is told from the perspective of one member of one generation, so just as you expect to settle into one story, you are jolted to the next .

My favourite quote from the book :  " The curse may have been rooted in a lie, but perhaps it bore the fruit of truth ".

I would   highly  recommend this book if 

you love historical fiction and  would love to learn about Africa and African  American's journey through slavery  to this present time.

THE BOOKKAHOLIC RATES IT : 7/10

You can buy Homegoing on Amazon and add it to Goodreads.

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Happy Reading!