Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Context

Great Britain in the last quarter of the 18th century was the largest trader of human lives between Africa and the plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean. Almost one million enslaved Africans in the British Caribbean worked about 3,000 hours a year. The result was 3,000 million hours of free labour producing sugar, cotton and coffee. The population of England at that time numbered only five million people.

The Plot

The tale begins in the late 18th century in an Asante village, part of the Gold Coast which eventually became Ghana. A young girl, Effia Otcher, is sold by her father to a British slavetrader named James – as a bride, not as a slave – and taken to live with him in Cape Coast Castle, a fort overlooking the sea. The slaves are in dungeons underneath the castle, awaiting transit to the Americas and the Caribbean via the Middle Passage. Among them are ex-house servants, overflow prisoners of tribal and regional wars and unlucky captives sold to the Europeans for money and goods, such as 15-year-old Esi Asare, Effia’s half-sister. Esi was seized during a raid on her own village and brought to the castle by “bomboys”, local boys who worked for the British transporting cargo. In a series of subsequent interconnected stories, the bloodlines of these two women are followed through seven generations covering the associated histories of the US and Ghana up to the turn of the 21st century.

My personal thoughts

The book is absolutely captivating, i struggled to put it down.

The fact that the author has taken us on a journey which is generational is simply genius. I felt emotionally connected to all of the characters within the book. The writer has done a awesome job.

The book though fictional is very confronting because it has been based on historical events. When reading the book i often had moments where i thought to myself how could have slavery been a thing in the first place. Feelings of disgust began to arise within that my ancestors may have been subject to the torture described.

I give this book 5/5

If you’re someone who loves your history with a twist, a serial non book finisher, happy when the story does not give you the end you want, like to be left wanting more?

I highly recommend this book for you

Yas