The Ghanaian American author Yaa Gyasi has a new novel coming in July 2020 from Alfred A. Knopf. Titled Transcendent Kingdom, it tells the story of a small Ghanaian family in Alabama, and charts the course of a young woman named Gifty, studying to become a neuroscientist, who grapples with faith, salvation, and science after […]
Tag Archives: homegoing
How Contemporary African Novelists Have Embraced Historical Fiction
Most of the best-known Africa-set African novels of the last five years are works of historical fiction: from Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s Dust (2013), from Kenya, and Jennifer Makumbi’s Kintu (2014), from Uganda, to Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees (2015), from Nigeria, Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (2016), from Ghana, Peter Kimani’s Dance of the Jakaranda (2016), […]
5 Take-aways from Yaa Gyasi’s Essay on Writing and Space
In an essay published recently in The Guardian, award winning author of Homegoing Yaa Gyasi talks about her “writing space.” The essay opens with a story about her ordering a desk that never arrived. After a number of frustrating customer service calls and an hour of tears and trying to figure out why the absence of the desk […]
Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (Nearly) Claims Its Fourth Award of 2017
Yaa Gyasi’s hot debut novel, Homegoing, just fell short of bagging its fourth award of 2017, following wins of the National Book Critics Circle Award’s John Leonard Prize, the 2017 PEN Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, and the American Book Awards. It was named runner-up for the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction, ceding […]
American Book Awards: Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing Wins Its Third Prize of 2017
Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing is among the sixteen winners of the 2017 American Book Awards. This recognition is the third major prize picked by the debut novel in 2017 as well as since its June 2016 publication, following its wins of the 2017 National Book Critics’ Circle’s John Leonard First Book Prize and the 2017 PEN Hemingway […]
Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing Is Mandatory Reading for Stanford University Freshers
Yaa Gyasi’s multigenerational novel Homegoing is now mandatory reading for freshers at her alma mater, Stanford University. The heavy-hitting first novel was chosen as part of the university’s “Three Books” programme in which freshers are encouraged to read three recommended books. Set in Ghana and the US, Homegoing spans three centuries and seven generations, and follows […]
Dear Ms. Paper: Why Does Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing Bother Me So Much?
Dear Ms. Paper I found Gyasi’s Homegoing a dizzying, confusing wreck of a novel. It felt like way too many characters were jostling for space in a story that should just be about two women. The plot movement was too choppy for my taste, to be honest. Right when you’re getting invested in a character, […]
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