The book starts small: two half-sisters in Ghana at the start of the trans-Atlantic slave trade - one stays in her home village, and the other is taken by the English, imprisoned, and forcibly removed to the then-American colonies. Isn’t that one of the best books you’ve ever read? So sweeping in scope, but also perfectly small enough to pack a punch? So beautifully written, where every word serves a purpose? So impeccably researched, where the reader really feels the sweep of history in such different eras and locales? Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the accolades, and I’ll get back to the review. Review: I may be the last person on Earth to read this book, but in case you, like me, put it off until now: RUN (don’t walk) to start reading it.

Trigger warnings: drug use, spousal abuse, slavery (and all associated horrors), racism 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. 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. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle.

Synopsis: Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other.

Yaa gyasi book