Homegoing

boy s name was Fiifi, and he was so fat that sometimes, when Baaba wasn t looking, Effia would roll him along the ground like a ball. The first day that Baaba let Effia hold him, she accidentally dropped him. The baby bounced on his buttocks, landed on his stomach, and looked up at everyone in the room, confused as to whether or not he should cry. He decided against it, but Baaba, who had been stirring banku, lifted her stirring stick and beat Effia across her bare back. Each time the stick lifted off the girl s body, it would leave behind hot, sticky pieces of banku that burned into her flesh. By the time Baaba had finished, Effia was covered with sores, screaming and crying. From the floor, rolling this way and that on his belly, Fiifi looked at Effia with his saucer eyes but made no noise.

Cobbe came home to find his other wives attending to Effia s wounds and understood immediately what had happened. He and Baaba fought well into the night. Effia could hear them through the thin walls of the hut where she lay on the floor, drifting in and out of a feverish sleep. In her dream, Cobbe was a lion and Baaba was a tree. The lion plucked the tree from the ground where it stood and slammed it back down. The tree stretched its branches in protest, and the lion ripped them off, one by one. The tree, horizontal, began to cry red ants that traveled down the thin cracks between its bark. The ants pooled on the soft earth around the top of the tree trunk.

And so the cycle began. Baaba beat Effia. Cobbe beat Baaba. By the time Effia had reached age ten, she could recite a history of the scars on her body. The summer of 1764, when Baaba broke yams across her back. The spring of 1767, when Baaba bashed her left foot with a rock, breaking her big toe so that it now always pointed away from the other toes. For each scar on Effia s body, th

visceral understanding of both the savage realities of slavery and the emotional damage that is handed down, over the centuries. . . . By its conclusion, the characters tales of loss and resilience have acquired an inexorable and cumulative emotional weight. The New York Times

[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. . . . No novel has better illustrated the way in which racism became institutionalized in this country. Vogue

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

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

Rich. . . . Fascinating. . . . Each chapter is tightly plotted, and there are suspenseful, even spectacular climaxes.   Vulture

  [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

Homegoing weaves a spectacular epic. . . . Gyasi gives voice not just to a single person or moment, but to a resonant chorus of eight generations. Los Angeles Review of Books

Moving. . . . Compelling. . . . Gyasi is an enormously talented writer. The Dallas Morning News

I cannot remember the last time I read a novel that made me want to use the adjective perfect. . . . Yaa Gyasi s Homegoing is a feat rarely achieved: a book with the scope of world history and the craft of something much smaller. . . . The cumulative effect is staggering. Molly McArdle, Brooklyn Magazine 

Carrying on in the tradition of her foremothers like Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, Assia Djebar and Bessie Head Gyasi has created a marvelous work of fiction that both embraces and re-writes history. Paste

Impressive . . . intricate in plot and scope. . . . Homegoing serves as a modern-day reconstruction of lost and untold narratives and a desire to move forward. Miami Herald

Heart-wrenching . . . . Yaa Gyasi s assured Homegoing is a panorama of splendid
faces.   Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A remarkable achievement, marking the arrival of a powerful new voice in fiction.   St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Luminous. . . . The author thrillingly depicts her characters migrations from mud-hut villages to Harlem's jazz clubs to Ghana's silvered beaches, celebrating how place and fate shape us all. Oprah.com

Epic . . . a timely, riveting portrayal of the global African Diaspora and the aftereffects that linger on to this day. The Root

An emotional, beautiful, and remarkable book. . . . Homegoing is stunning a truly heartbreaking work of literary genius. Bustle

An important, riveting page-turner filled with beautiful prose, Homegoing shoots for the moon and lands right on it. Buzzfeed