Book Club Guide

Homegoing

by Yaa Gyasi · 2016 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The long shadow of slavery — across seven generations and two continents
The specific cost of each generation's particular historical moment
What is passed down — trauma, resilience, the need to know where you came from

About this book

Beginning in 18th-century Ghana with two half-sisters — one who marries a British coloniser and one who is sold into slavery — the novel follows each family's lineage for seven generations, to the present day. Gyasi's debut traces slavery's long reach across history and two continents in a formally ambitious generational saga.

Published in 2016, Homegoing was Gyasi's debut. She spent time in Ghana researching the novel and drew on the history of Cape Coast Castle, a major site of the slave trade. It is now widely assigned in American schools and universities.

Discussion questions

The novel follows two family lines across seven generations. What does this multi-generational structure achieve — and does the formal ambition sometimes work against the depth of individual characters?
Each chapter is a different character's story, often with a very brief appearance of the previous generation. How does Gyasi create continuity across this discontinuous structure?
The novel moves between Ghana and America — one family line among the British colonisers, one in slavery and its aftermath. What does the Ghanaian thread add to the American story?
Some characters are given more space than others. Which stories did you find most affecting — and what does the variation in depth reveal about the novel's constraints?
Homegoing is Gyasi's debut, published when she was 26. What in it shows remarkable achievement — and where do the seams of a first novel show?