Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi - Book Review

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I finished this book nearly two months ago, yet it is still fresh in mind. That is how impactful “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi is generally and specifically to me. The book spans across four centuries (mind blowing right?) and follows the stories of people displaced far and wide thousands of miles apart. ‘Homegoing’ is a book about Black History, beginning all the way from the British’s colonisation of Africa, slave trade to the American cotton plantation, the secession, the segregation, civil rights movements to racism in the modern world. 

The story begins with Maame, the African mother and her two daughters who are half sisters and who only know the existence of each other late into their leader. Effia and Esi, the two half sisters’ fathers, belong to opposing tribes and the sisters never meet in real life. Effia marries an Englishman while Esi falls prey to the slave trade and is shipped to America. Each chapter in the book shifts between the bloodline of the two sisters narrating the story of one survivor from each generation. 

Using the characters, Yaa Gyasi paints an accurate picture of almost the entire black experience. She brings in a wide variety of themes, such as displacement, poverty, addiction, slave torture migration, loss, death, imprisonment, family, visions, history, heritage, culture and countless other experiences. The book feels extremely wholesome, and the climax is clearly mindblowing. 

This short review will not do justice to the profound literature that is this book. There are a lot of layers, nuances to every story, every character and their feelings, their perspective on life. But what I can say is, it is a must read for everyone attempting to understand the world, and its many injustices. These books can help us better analyze our present situations too.