Gyasi recalls being shy as a child, feeling close to her brothers for their shared experiences as young immigrant children in Alabama, and turning to books as her "closest friends".[8] She was encouraged by receiving a certificate of achievement signed byLeVar Burton for the first story she wrote, which she had submitted to theReading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest. At the age of 17, while attendingGrissom High School, Gyasi was inspired after readingToni Morrison'sSong of Solomon to pursue writing as a career.[8]
Shortly after graduating from Stanford, Gyasi began writing her debut novelHomegoing while working at a tech startup company in San Francisco. She resigned in 2012 when she was accepted to the University of Iowa and switched focus to writing full-time.[10]
Homegoing was inspired by a 2009 trip to Ghana, funded by a grant to research her first book. Gyasi traveled to her mother's ancestralAshanti home inKumasi, visited with relatives, and toured theCape Coast Castle, a colonial trading fort used to hold enslaved Africans before boarding ships to the Americas.[11] This history contextualizes the novel's story, beginning with half-sisters Effia and Esi in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia weds a British commander of Cape Coast Castle, while Esi is held captive in the dungeons of the castle before being forced onto a slave ship. The following chapters alternate between the perspectives of Effia's descendent and Esi's descendants, spanning a total of seven generations to present-day United States.[1] The effects of colonialism are tracked through each family member and the historical milestones they live through, including conflict between theFante andAsante nations, the beginning of cocoa farming in Ghana, plantation slavery in the American South,convict labor during theReconstruction era, thecivil rights movement, and thecrack epidemic of the 1980s.[12][11]
Gyasi completed the novel in 2015 and, after numerous initial offers, accepted a seven-figure advance fromKnopf.[10]Ta-Nehisi Coates selectedHomegoing for the National Book Foundation's 20165 under 35 award,[9] and the novel was also selected for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award, thePEN/Hemingway Award for best first book, and the American Book Award for contributions to diversity in American literature.[13][14][15][16]
In February 2020, Knopf published Gyasi's second bookTranscendent Kingdom.[24][25] The novel features characters from a short story that Gyasi published inGuernica magazine in 2015 entitled "Inscape."[19] Transcendent Kingdom tells the story of 28-year-old Gifty in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, from her family's migration from Ghana to Alabama, the abandonment of her father, and her mother's struggle with depression after Gifty's brother overdoses at a young age. The novel explores the effects of racism as they manifest in addiction, depression, and family instability.[2]
In 2021, Gyasi authored the short story "Bad Blood" to be featured inThe 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. The story depicts a young black mother's hypochondria as an effect of the history of racism and discrimination in healthcare, citing the 1932Tuskegee Syphilis Study.[31]
Gyasi has been outspoken about her widespread recognition as a black author. In March 2021, she wrote an article inThe Guardian about the resurgent popularity ofHomegoing during theBlack Lives Matter protests the previous summer. She wrote: "While I do devoutly believe in the power of literature to challenge, to deepen, to change, I also know that buying books by black authors is but a theoretical, grievously belated and utterly impoverished response to centuries of physical and emotional harm."[32]
^abMikić, Marijana (2023). "Chapter 6 Race, Trauma, and the Emotional Legacies of Slavery in Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing".Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology. Taylor & Francis. pp. 100–114.ISBN9781032198538.
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