A Review of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi Reading With R

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Well, hello there. Welcome to another episode of reading with R. I am Ruqayyah Nabage your host extraordinaire, podcaster extraordinaire, reader extra-ordinaire people. So on this podcast, we review books, we fan girl over books. That's what we do. So if you're interested in that type of thing, tune in every month for a new episode, if you have a particular book you want me to review. Send me an email at ruqayyah.nabage@ayambalitcast.com, or you could send me a DM to any of my social media platforms, or ayambalitcast's platform. And a website is available to listen on all podcasting platforms. So without further ado, today's episode ladies and gentlemen drum roll- it is home going by Yaa Gyasi.
This book is written by a Ghanaian. Um, I think she's Ghanaian American, not too sure. I didn't do a lot of research into the author, but the book is amazing. You know, I saw it quite a lot before I read it. And then, um, surprise, surprise. I found out that my husband had a copy, so it was a particularly enjoyable read for me because I was able to read it in hard copy.
So the book is about two sisters. Yeah. Two sisters that were born from the same mother, but had different fathers whose lives turned out to be completely different from one another. So we followed the individual stories of those sisters and their descendants, through the years. So it's like, um, the first sister, um, uh, I have the book here with me.
So for reference purposes. So I don't mix up anybody's name. The first sister is Effia. Yeah. And the other is Ese. So what happened was the woman, her name was Maame, she was a slave. To a man. That was how she bought her first daughter. After she gave birth to the daughter, she ran away and set everything on fire.
Then she was found by a different man in a totally different town who married her. And she had a second daughter Ese. So technically, no, not really technically, literally both sisters never knew that the other existed. So we go through the lives of both sisters, we go through the lives of their children, their children's children like several generations down the line.
And the interesting thing is that one family, the first sister, her whole life and her generation, they stay in Ghana while the other is sold into slavery. And which takes her to America. Slavery, plantations and all of that. It's a very interesting journey. And, um, we will see how it's like parallels yeah?
What could have been. It's now that I'm talking about it. I remember this, um, movie that I've been seeing on Netflix about how one, I didn't actually watch the movie. I saw the trailer it's like parallel lives. What could have been. So this book is literally showing us what could have beens in the life of the two sisters, how they could share the same mother, but live such different lives.
How, like they have the same blood, but how, like the children, their descendants live such completely different lives. And you know, the ones in Ghana, obviously it's a lot easier for them to keep track of their lineage. But somehow, even though like they have power and stuff and they're still in their homeland, they still lose themselves.
They still lose that ancestry, their bloodline, they don't know their lineage due to, you know, circumstances. That I will not divulge because I want you to read the book and find out by yourself and then the other sister. The one in America, she loses, they lose their own lineage to, at a point it cuts off.
They don't know where they come from. I think the author probably did it deliberately. I think it was around the same generation that they both lost touch. And interestingly enough, there are some ancestor like descendants sorry not ancestors descendants that see Maame, the woman that all began with in their dreams and stuff.
And of course people call her crazy and all of that. It's really beautiful. Um, and, uh, it's just, it's amazing. It's, it's a feat of beautiful writing and the story