Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi (2016)
“Seven generations of two Black family lines — one trapped in slavery, one complicit in it — and the fire that connects them all the way to the present.”
Short Summary
Beginning in 18th-century Ghana, Homegoing traces two half-sisters — Effia, who marries a British slave trader, and Esi, who is sold into slavery — through seven generations of their descendants. One lineage stays in Africa; the other is scattered across America. Each chapter follows a single person one generation forward, showing how slavery, colonialism, and racism reshape identity across time. The novel ends in the present day when the two lines finally converge.
Detailed Summary
Homegoing opens in the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) in the mid-1700s. Maame, a woman who survives a fire that destroys one village to flee to another, has two daughters by two different men: Effia, raised in Fanteland by a jealous stepmother, and Esi, sold into slavery after being captured during ...