Homegoing

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE • WINNER OF THE PEN / HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION • Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.
One of Oprah’s Best Books of the Year, Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.

 

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Published May 2, 2017

320 pages

Average rating: 8.41

1,411 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

What Bookclubbers are saying about this book

✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI

Readers say *Homegoing* is a powerful, beautifully written debut tracing two sisters’ descendants across generations, exploring identity, history, inj...

Groundhogcat
Oct 24, 2025
8/10 stars
Interesting novel regading how individual and societal actions can reverberate through several gnereations - in this case slavery and setting someone on fire.
K Olson
Jan 14, 2025
8/10 stars
Growing up my step-father always used to tell me to remember that history is written by the victors. In Homegoing the author describes it this way:
“We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So, when you study history, you must always ask yourself, whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story, too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.”
This novel follows two half sisters and their descendants over the course of eight generations. This would be a great book club pick because there’s so much to discuss.
__thebookspace
Jul 26, 2024
5/10 stars
This book really dragged for me not going to lie. The first part was very descriptive and at times hard to read so I disengaged quite often. But part 2? Chileeee was so good! Everything made sense, everything added up and it was really nice to see that the first half of the book wasn’t in vain. Yaa Gyasi beautifully weaves the past traumas, stories, traditions and lives of the ancestors and those who came before into the present day and life of the children and grandchildren in part 2 and I really enjoyed that.
Meagangu
Mar 12, 2023
9/10 stars
This book was amazing! From start to finish I was completely submerged and addicted and after every nights read I was left wanting more. I won’t add any spoilers but the only reason I didn’t give it a 10 was because the ending could have been so much more. The whole story , every single line was amazingly written but I felt the end was a little rushed and kinda predictable. Overall I would for sure recommend and actually am hoping someone makes this into a movie it would instantly become a classic!
Butterflypages
Mar 29, 2022
8/10 stars
Highly recommend

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