Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Book Analysis)

This practical and insightful reading guide offers a complete summary and analysis of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. It provides a thorough exploration of the novel’s content and main themes, as well as a useful discussion of the key images that shape the narrative. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

This clear and detailed 52-page reading guide is structured as follows:

• Biography of Yaa Gyasi
• Presentation of Homegoing
• Summary of Homegoing
• Character study
  • Kojo
  • Akua
• Analysis of Homegoing
  • The fire image
  • The black stone
  • Time

About Homegoing

Homegoing begins with the stories of two sisters, Effia and Esi, who are born and grow up in Ghana. Esi’s life and future are radically altered when she is captured and sold into slavery, which means that she never returns to her homeland and all her descendants grow up in the USA, cut off from their past. With its epic scope and vivid depictions of historical issues, from tribal warfare in Ghana to segregation in America, Homegoing garnered praise for its complex, compelling story. The novel quickly became an international bestseller and won the National Book Critics’ Circle John Leonard Prize for best first book.

About Yaa Gyasi

Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian-American novelist who is known for her 2016 novel Homegoing. She was born in Ghana, but moved to the USA at a very young age for her father’s PhD studies and lived in Alabama from the age of ten. She was inspired to pursue a career in writing after reading Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and later studied English at Stanford University and obtained her MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She returned to Ghana in 2009, and the trip, along with her experience of the legacy of slavery in the USA, inspired her to write Homegoing.