What readers think of Homegoing, plus links to write your own review.

This a historical novel/family epic masquerading as the most creative collection of short stories I have ever read.

The premise: It is the summer of 1775 on the Gold Coast of West Africa. (The Gold Coast was a British Crown colony until its independence in 1957 when it became known as Ghana.) Effia and Esi are half-sisters, but they do not know of each other's existence. Effia catches the eye of James, a white British trader of slaves, who pays her parents a large bride price and takes his teenage bride from her forested village to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean to live in the Cape Coast Castle, the center of operations for his dirty work. Meanwhile, in a nearby village, Effia's half-sister Esi, is captured in a raid by slave traders where she, too, is taken to the castle. But her quarters are in the dungeon until she is thrown on a ship and transported to the United States to be sold into slavery in the South.

This incredibly imaginative book by Yaa Gyasi follows generation by generation the descendants of the privileged Effia, who remain in Africa as royalty but still living in slavery's horrible shadow and its evil ramifications, as well as the descendants of the American slave Esi, who live a life filled with cruelty, hardship, toil, and discrimination. Each chapter is titled with the name of a person, and the narrative in that chapter not only moves the story forward, but also ties up the loose ends in previous chapters. The final two chapters, taking place in the current day, circle back and bring the story to a marvelous close.

The writing is magnificent, drawing in the reader completely. The images Gyasi paints with her words seem so real I could almost reach out and touch them.

This a fierce, unflinching, and absolutely triumphant novel that becomes a personalized history of Africans and African-Americans told in a way that will sear your heart and soul. It's impossible to read this book and not be greatly affected by it.

If you are still a serif about the emotional horrors of the slave trade and how it damaged people through out the. The chapter about Ness breaks your heart in ways that are too familiar. I am captivated by this story.