Homegoing

Alex Haley beschrieb in seinem Welterfolg 'Roots' auf mehr als 700 Seiten das Leben von Kunta Kinte und seinen Nachkommen - Yaa Gyasi benötigt für die Geschichte der Halbschwestern Effia und Esi und ihren Nachfahren nur 400 Seiten, ohne dass ich beim Lesen das Gefühl hatte, nur unvollständige Ausschnitte mitgeteilt zu bekommen.
14 Kapitel hat das Buch, jedes ist einem Abkömmling einer Generation gewidmet, beginnend mit Effia und Esi, die sich nie kennenlernten. Während Effia, die die uneheliche Tochter des Hausmädchens Maame ist, das direkt nach ihrer Geburt floh, gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts mit einem britischen Festungsgouverneur verheiratet wird, wird Esi, Maames eheliche Tochter, ca. zur gleichen Zeit vom Stamme Effias show more gefangengenommen und als Sklavin verkauft. Sie und ihre Nachkommen werden in den USA leben und aufwachsen unter den erbärmlichsten Bedingungen, die man sich vorstellen kann. Selbst das Verbot der Sklaverei ändert kaum etwas an den gnadenlosen Zuständen, in denen sie sich befinden.
Effias Nachfahren hingegen bleiben in Ghana, profitieren weiterhin vom Sklavenhandel oder entziehen sich ihm auf radikale Weise mit der Hoffnung, so ihr Glück zu finden.
Obwohl von jeder Person stets nur 20 bis 30 Seiten lang erzählt wird, reichen diese vollständig aus, um sich eine Vorstellung von ihrem Lebensweg und dem seiner bzw. ihrer Eltern zu machen. Geschickt werden Erinnerungen und Rückblicke in die laufende Geschichte eingeflochten, sodass ich kontinuierlich der Fortentwicklung dieser Familie folgen konnte, die bis in die heutige Zeit von der Sklaverei gekennzeichnet ist.
Dieses Buch ist beeindruckend und grandios, aber auch entsetzlich grausam, wobei ich keine Grausamkeit im blutrünstigen Sinne meine. Denn was Yaa Gyasi hier erzählt, mag eine fiktive Geschichte sein, aber das wovon sie berichtet, beruht auf realen Geschehnissen. show less

"Her people, the Asantes, were the broth, and his father's people, the Fantes, were the ground nuts, and the many other nations that began at the edge of the Atlantic and moved up through the bushland into the North made up the meat and pepper and vegetables. This pot was already full to the brim before the white men came and added fire. Now it was all the Gold Coast people could do to keep from boiling over again and again and again."

This is a family saga taking place over 300 or so years, beginning with two half-sisters, Effia and Essi in the Gold Coast. Effia marries a British "slaver"--and her line continues in Africa. Essi is captured and brought to America as a slave. We meet a descendant of each of the sisters in each succeeding show more generation through the years to the present. Along the way, through Effia's descendants we learn a bit of the history and cultures of the various tribes in that region of Africa, and through Essi's descendants we viscerally feel the experiences of slavery, emancipation, Jim Crow, and up to the present day.
I loved this book, and find it hard to believe that it is a first novel written by such a young woman. I put off reading it for a long time, as I often do for books that seem overhyped, and I'm sorry I did. In the case the hype is entirely deserved. There is so much here, all of it beautifully written, and easy to read.

3 1/2 stars show less

Hit, miss or epic fail, I love random book purchases from charity shops influenced purely by cover and blurb.
The novel opens with a family tree spanning seven generations starting with Maame, the mother of half-sisters Effia and Esi, and is perfect for keeping track of which side of the tree the descendants originate from.
Effia and Esi are born under different circumstances and destined to lead different lives, unaware of the other’s existence. Effia becomes the wife of white slave trader James Collins and lives in luxury at Cape Coast Castle. Fleeing her besieged village, Esi is captured, sold and held in the dungeons of the very same castle before being shipped to America.
Each chapter is a stand-alone novella, the whole a show more masterpiece in storytelling as the family history turns full circle through fire and water, war and division, America and Africa. From the barbarity and inhumanity of slavery in the deep south to no-holds-barred racism and discrimination in the north, from merciless missionaries in Kumasi to the poverty, rivalries and trading in the villages, Home Going doesn’t pull any punches yet still manages to provide hope.
Relevant, thought-provoking and highly recommended. A hit! show less

If you have even a toe in the book world, you probably heard a lot about this book last year or the year before. So yes, I might very well be the last person on the planet to read it despite having had a copy of it forever. Somehow it just never made it onto my bedside table and I missed out on the whole conversation about it amongst lit reading types. I figured when one of my book clubs chose it for this month's book that it was a good time for me to finally tackle it and see what all the hype was about. And I'm so glad I did because the descriptions I'd seen of it don't quite catch the truth and reality of it (nor will I, most likely).

Opening in Ghana and chronicling 300 years, the novel starts out conventionally with the story of show more Effia the Beauty, a young Ashanti woman whose harsh and spiteful mother marries her off to the British governor of the Cape Coast Castle rather than to the chief of their village. Effia goes to live in the upper floors of the Castle while other Ghanians destined for slavery in the Americas, including Esi, the half-sister Effia never knew, are kept in appalling conditions in the dungeons while awaiting transport. The genealogical lines flow downward from these two women as the 7 generations of their descendants make their way in Ghana and in the US, caught up in the changing history and times they live in. This is an unapologetic and gritty look at the long reaching consequences of slavery and colonialism on two very different branches of one family.

The stories of each generation, told in individual chapters, focus on one descendant of Effia and one of Esi and they run parallel to each other on down through the family tree, showing the long arc of divergence and eventual convergence in this one representative family. Each chapter captures a brief snapshot of life for the character in question leaving large swathes of time out of the narrative, focusing the reader's attention on the historical moment almost as much as on the character themselves. Each story is a distillation of that historical generation's experiences in both the US and Ghana. The family tree in the beginning of the book comes in handy in keeping everyone straight and for comparing how far from the original sisters each person is, giving the reader additional perspective since the characters themselves progressively lose pieces of their familial history as time goes on. The novel is epic in scope but the chapters and stories themselves are each self-contained and tightly focused. The narrative starts out leisurely and captivating but speeds up in later chapters and the final chapters unfold with less nuanced pictures of the later characters' lives, highlighting their generation's historical moments more than their individuality and the ending itself, while clearly symbolic, might be just a little bit too much. Gyasi has written a sweeping and expansive novel of black history, in surprisingly few pages, that encompasses the biggest movements, tragedies, and outrages against a people in two different countries. It tackles not only the horrors of slavery and colonialism but also the truth and shame of complicity. The novel is unflinching in its look at inhumanity and institutionalized hardship but it also shows instances of deep and abiding love, acceptance, and perseverance. A worthwhile and important read, no wonder it won or was nominated for so many awards. show less

Homegoing is the story of two branches of a family tree with one sister being sold into slavery and taken to America and the other sister remaining in Ghana. The narrative alternates between the two lines, with each chapter being the story of the next descendant. I found this a very effective structure for telling the multigenerational family story, although I did appreciate the family tree at the beginning of the book. I wasn't sure how the author was going to tie things up at the end and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. Although some sections were of necessity difficult reading, and I wish I knew more Ghanaian history, Homegoing was a wonderful story and a stunning debut novel.

I had heard so much praise for this book last year and it did not disappoint. The story of two Ghanaian step sisters, unknown to each other, whose lives took different paths, is the starting point of this saga that moves from the 18th century to present day. The unfolding of the generational experiences is a masterpiece of writing skill. Gyasi is so accomplished at creating a narrative that it is hard to believe this is her debut novel. She writes with exquisite detail while at the same time keeping the prose crisp and spare. I was spellbound by her technique of ending a chapter with one statement so dramatic and so beautiful that it lead me to catch my breath as I read. She is only 27. What wonderful things are ahead?

This book starts with the story of two half sisters, Effia and Esi, who did not know each other, from different tribes in Ghana in the 18th century. One becomes privileged and the other sold as a slave. It continues in alternating chapters, describing the life of one child of each generation of the descendants of Effia and Esi, up to year 2000. I was amazed by the author's ability to cover hundreds of years in such a succinct manner. The book contains running threads of relevant themes such as the far-reaching adverse impact of slavery, roles of women, belief systems, storytelling, family relationships, and cultural heritage. It feels like a collection of vignettes, with each character getting just enough coverage to enable a reader to show more understand how each is linked to the past. As a tip, keep referring to the genealogy chart to keep the lineage of the characters straight. I recommend this book to anyone. It is well-written, thought-provoking, and contains important topics influencing our world today. show less