Homegoing

Review

A New York Times Bestseller
International Bestseller
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 Globe and Mail Best Book
A Guardian Best Book
A National Post Best Book
A CBC 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

"It's impossible not to admire the ambition and scope of Homegoing, and 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, from mothers to daughters, fathers to sons. At its best, the novel makes us experience the horrors of slavery on an intimate, personal level; by its conclusion, the characters' tales of loss and resilience have acquired an inexorable and cumulative emotional weight." ―Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Book Review
"Gyasi's characters are so fully realized, so elegantly carved--very often I found myself longing to hear more. . . . I think I needed to read a book like this to remember what is possible. I think I needed to remember what happens when you pair a gifted literary mind to an epic task. Homegoing is an inspiration." --Ta-Nehisi Coates, National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me
"A blazing success. . . . The sum of Homegoing's parts is remarkable, a panoramic portrait of the slave trade and its reverberations, told through the travails of one family that carries the scars of that legacy. . . . Gyasi's characters may be fictional, but their stories are representative of a range of experience that is all too real and difficult to uncover. Terrible things happen to them; they're constantly cleaved apart, and in the process, cut off from their own stories. In her ambitious and sweeping novel, Gyasi has made these lost stories a little more visible." --Los Angeles Times
"Homegoing is assured and propulsive, feeling as inevitable as time itself in its pacing, each chapter delving deep into the life of one man or woman, reeling through lives burned by histories both global and domestic. . . . Homegoing is in a league of its own, contemporary and complex and astoundingly assured. . . . With Homegoing, Gyasi arrives, already a major and inspiring literary talent." --Toronto Star
"Yaa Gyasi's much-anticipated novel lives up to the hype. . . . [Homegoing is a] dazzling and much-anticipated debut. . . . At 27, Gyasi is already a consummate craftsperson, ferrying us to and fro across the Atlantic with ease. . . . Homegoing is a footbridge across the Atlantic--proof that blood is thicker than wide water, confirmation that, yes indeed, we can go home again." ―Maclean's
"Ambitious, but Gyasi pulls it off. . . . Such a powerful debut." --The Globe and Mail
"Homegoing, Gyasi's debut novel, is a work of remarkable intimacy and scope that introduces a writer whose artistry and ambitions are equally matched." ―National Post

"Homegoing [is a] hypnotic debut novel by Yaa Gyasi, a stirringly gifted young writer. . . . The great, aching gift of the novel is that it offers, in its own way, the very thing that enslavement denied its descendants: the possibility of imagining the connection between the broken threads of their origins." ―Isabel Wilkerson, The New York Times
"[A] rich d