Yaa’s ‘Homegoing’ takes humanity back home

In her debut novel ‘Homegoing’, Yaa Gyasi takes us through generations in the bloodline of Effia Otcher and Esi Asare, Ghanaian half-sisters who have never met. 

Their destinies were separated when the British arrived in Ghana. Effia’s descendants remained in Ghana while Esi’s in America. Each chapter is a story of the son or a daughter of the one covered in the previous chapter. 

Yaa’s writing is captivating. She has a way of pulling you in with strong imagery and phrases. 

At 25, Yaa has come into the literary scene by storm. The title of the book (Homegoing) is what used to refer to slave funerals. During slavery, African-Americans believed that your spirit could return to Africa once you died.

Yaa takes us into the floors of a dungeon, where dead bodies are piled one on top of the other, as the ones who have survived are waiting to be shipped to America. 

They have to survive in the dark for days and when the women are touched by the the English soldiers they cannot protest. 

The stench of their own waste is unbearable. The food is awful. That is where the Asante girl Esi is. Just above her is Effia, her half sister. She is formerly from Fanteland, married to James Cannon at Cape Coast Castle. Although she does not go through the physical torture that those who were shipped to the US, she had her own mental unrest. They both must cope with the new way of life. 

Effia’s son, Quey has a hard time identifying himself as a black man or British. He struggles in the in-between like his own son James. 

But far away in the cotton plantations, Ness has to work under the quenching sun and painful whip to save her life. 

The family’s relationship with Africa becomes more distant with time until it becomes a far fetched memory.

Yaa, who is Ghanaian American, has discussed in various platforms how different African Americans and Africans migrating America in current times are. 

She immigrated to the US with her family when she was two.This relationship between the two is one of the themes in ‘Homegoing’. Although we come from the same people, ‘Homegoing’ shows us how migration, slavery, incarceration, and mass oppression has changed us. 

We live in two different realities and we look at race differently. Not because we want to, but because our stories are not the same. 

As the renowned Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said, she never felt ‘black’ until she was in the US. She had to learn what it means to be black in America. 

Storytelling has a part in making us remain true to our heritage. 

This is what is said of Kojo Freeman, a son of slave, living in Baltimore as a free man. He is also known as Jo: “Jo used to worry that his family line had been cut off, lost forever. 

He would never truly know who his people were, and who their people were before him, and if there were stories to be heard about where he had come from, he would never hear them.” 

What leaves a lasting impression is the way ‘Homegoing’ makes you see the big picture. Yaa has said it in her book, and even on various interviews that she wanted to show how Africans were also involved in the trade. 

It is something that we often take for granted. The white man was able to get to us by making one brother fight another. One kingdom was against another.