YAA GYASI was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she held a Dean’s Graduate Research Fellowship. She lives in New York City.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize for
Outstanding First Book
Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction
Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction
Runner-up of the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in fiction
Longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize
Nominated for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A New York Times Notable Book • A Washington Post Notable Book • A
Time Top Novel • An Oprah Favorite Book • A Guardian Best Book • An
Entertainment Weekly Best Book • A Buzzfeed Best Book • A BBC Best
Book • An Esquire Best Book • An Atlantic Best Book • A Kirkus
Reviews Best Book • An NPR Best Book • A Harper's Bazaar Best Book
• An Elle Best Book • A Paste Magazine Best Book • A Jezebel Best
Book • An A.V. Club Favorite Book • A British GQ Best Book • A
Popsugar Best Book • A Financial Times Best Book
“Homegoing is an inspiration.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates
"Spectacular." —Zadie Smith
“Powerful. . . . Compelling. . . . Illuminating.” —The Boston
Globe
“A blazing success.” —Los Angeles Times
“I could not put this book down.” —Roxane Gay
“Devastating. . . . Luminous.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A beautiful story.” —Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
“Spellbinding.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Dazzling. . . . Devastating. . . . Truly captivating.” —The
Washington Post
“Brims with compassion. . . . Yaa Gyasi has given rare and heroic
voice to the missing and suppressed.” —NPR
“Tremendous . . . Spectacular. . . . Essential reading.” —San
Francisco Chronicle
“Magical. . . . Hypnotic. . . . Yaa Gyasi [is] a stirringly gifted
writer.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Powerful. . . . Gyasi has delivered something unbelievably tough
to pull off: a centuries-spanning epic of interlinked short
stories. . . . She has a poet’s ability to pain a scene with a
handful of phrases.” —The Christian Science Monitor
“Thanks to Ms. Gyasi’s instinctive storytelling gifts, the book
leaves the reader with a visceral understanding of both the savage
realities of slavery and the emotional damage that is handed down,
over the centuries. . . . By its conclusion, the characters’ tales
of loss and resilience have acquired an inexorable and cumulative
emotional weight.” —The New York Times
“[Toni Morrison’s] influence is palpable in Gyasi’s historicity and
lyricism; she shares Morrison’s uncanny ability to crystalize, in a
single event, slavery’s moral and emotional fallout. . . . No
novel has better illustrated the way in which racism became
institutionalized in this country.” —Vogue
“Gyasi gives voice, and an empathetic ear, to the ensuing seven
generations of flawed and deeply human descendants, creating a
patchwork mastery of historical fiction.” —Elle
“A remarkable feat—a novel at once epic and intimate, capturing the
moral weight of history as it bears down on individual struggles,
hopes, and fears. A tremendous debut.” —Phil Klay,
National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment
“Rich. . . . Fascinating. . . . Each chapter is tightly plotted,
and there are suspenseful, even spectacular
climaxes.” —Vulture
“[A] commanding debut . . . will stay with you long after
you’ve finished reading. When people talk about all the things
fiction can teach its readers, they’re talking about books like
this.” —Marie Claire
“Homegoing weaves a spectacular epic. . . . Gyasi gives voice not
just to a single person or moment, but to a resonant chorus of
eight generations.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Moving. . . . Compelling. . . . Gyasi is an enormously talented
writer.” —The Dallas Morning News
“I cannot remember the last time I read a novel that made me want
to use the adjective perfect. . . . Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing is a feat
rarely achieved: a book with the scope of world history and the
craft of something much smaller. . . . The cumulative effect is
staggering.” —Molly McArdle, Brooklyn Magazine
“Carrying on in the tradition of her foremothers—like Toni
Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, Assia Djebar and Bessie Head—Gyasi has
created a marvelous work of fiction that both embraces and
re-writes history.” —Paste
“Impressive . . . intricate in plot and scope. . . . Homegoing
serves as a modern-day reconstruction of lost and untold
narratives—and a desire to move forward.” —Miami Herald
“Heart-wrenching . . . . Yaa Gyasi’s assured Homegoing is a
panorama of splendid
faces.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A remarkable achievement, marking the arrival of a powerful new
voice in fiction.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Luminous. . . . The author thrillingly depicts her characters’
migrations from mud-hut villages to Harlem's jazz clubs to Ghana's
silvered beaches, celebrating how place and fate shape us all.”
—Oprah.com
“Epic . . . a timely, riveting portrayal of the global African
Diaspora—and the aftereffects that linger on to this day.” —The
Root
“An emotional, beautiful, and remarkable book. . . . Homegoing is
stunning—a truly heartbreaking work of literary genius.”
—Bustle
“An important, riveting page-turner filled with beautiful prose,
Homegoing shoots for the moon and lands right on it.” —Buzzfeed
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