Book Review – Homegoing
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Viking) ISBN 9780241242735
‘The family is like the forest: if you are outside it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position.’ – Akan Proverb
Yaa Gyasi was born in Mampong, Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. She has written short stories and this is her first novel.
Circumstances can scatter families and one’s position is lost. The story is essentially about two families with two characters portraying their journeys. The first character is Effa, a child born during a fire. Her father’s first wife Baba had no love for Effa and abuses her, saying she is cursed. Some years later Effa marries a
British slave trader although he also has a family in Britain. She bears a son.
Effa has a sister, Esi about whom she does not know. Esi is captured during a tribal war and sold into slavery. While she awaits the transfer, she is in a filthy, dark and airless jungle. She lands in America, and works as a slave in a Mississippi cotton plantation.