Homegoing: A novel

by Yaa Gyasi Narrated by Dominic Hoffman

Overview

The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day.

Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Editorial Reviews

JUNE 2016 - AudioFile

Narrator Dominic Hoffman does a masterful job of telling the stories of two half sisters who are separated by life and brought together by fate. A searing tale of two women, Effia and Esi, this family epic moves from eighteenth-century Ghana to America in the 1920s. Hoffman’s deep baritone maximizes the myriad feelings at the heart of this sprawling historical tale. The slave trade, colonialism, and sexism are some of the issues the characters grapple with. Hoffman’s performance captures the rhythms of West-African English, giving authenticity to the listening experience. This audiobook will keep listeners enthralled with these fierce heroines for hours. M.R. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

Gyasi’s characters are so fully realized, so elegantly carved—very often I found myself longing to hear more. Craft is essential given the task Gyasi sets for herself—drawing not just a lineage of two sisters, but two related peoples. Gyasi is deeply concerned with the sin of selling humans on Africans, not Europeans. But she does not scold. She does not excuse. And she does not romanticize. The black Americans she follows are not overly virtuous victims.  Sin comes in all forms, from selling people to abandoning children.  I think I needed to read a book like this to remember what is possible.  I think I needed to remember what happens when you pair a gifted literary mind to an epic task. Homegoing is an inspiration.”

—Ta-Nehisi Coates, National Book Award winning author of Between the World and Me

"Homegoing is 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

From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171818340
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/07/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	418,332

Videos