Title: Homegoing
Author: Yaa Gyasi
Genre: Fiction, historical fiction, family drama
Homegoing is family epic by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi. It follows the descendants of two half-sisters in Ghana in the 18th century: One, Effia, marries a British governor there. The other, Esi, is captured in raids and sold into slavery in America by that same governor. Gyasi's novel traces the story of their family from there.
As I'm sure you can imagine just by the novel's description,
Homegoing is a heavy book. It's not long--only 300 pages--but the subjects it deals with are dark.
Homegoing shines a very personal, intimate light on historical atrocities and it is unflinching in the stark reality of those things. However, it is not sensationalist--the things that happen, particularly to Esi's family, are shocking, but not because Gyasi is playing a gotcha game with the reader, simply because we know these things really happened. This isn't a story about real people, but it is true, in that sense--these things
did happen, to generations of people.
Each chapter is a generation of the family--chapter 1 is Effia's story about marrying the governor, chapter 2 is Esi's story about her capture and imprisonment, chapter 3 is the story of Effia's son Quey, etc.--which allows Gyasi to span centuries of history, shining a light both on the development of Ghana first as it is brought under the yoke of colonialism, through its fight for independence, to regaining its sovereignty; as well as the struggle of Black Americans first against slavery and then on the successive attempts to maintain racism in the state: Jim Crow, chain gangs, the war on drugs.
While there is great suffering in
Homegoing, Gyasi also shows, I think, that joy exists even in the worst times. Even the hardest-suffering of Gyasi's characters still have hopes and dreams; they still fall in love; they still have inside jokes with friends; they still dance and sing and teach children to walk and try to preserve the memories of their loved ones.
Homegoing documents an almost unfathomable amount of hardship, but it also knows that life will always try to find a way.
The novel is obviously very well-researched. Gyasi has put a lot of effort into a holistic understanding of both Ghanaian and American history and it shows.
Although we don't get long with most of the characters, each of them stands out as distinct from one another. Gyasi does a wonderful job of showing their own mindsets, opinions, virtues and vices, relationships with their family and their history, and how that intersects with that character's particular struggle.
Really a very well-done book. I know I'm going to be thinking about this one for a long time, and I think it has undoubtedly earned its place on the various recommendation lists where it sits. If you are squeamish about the subject material, or not someone who usually goes for books that deal with such heavy issues, I would strongly suggest giving this one a try anyway. It matters that we remember not only that these things were wrong, but
why they were wrong, and Gyasi shows that here in vivid detail. It's really worth the read.
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Free for All Saturday, Week 4 [DW Edition]
Jan. 24th, 2026 09:09 am↑↑↑ Available dates:
February 3 & 5
February 10 & 12
February 17 & 19
Happy Saturday to you, and welcome to our weekly Free for All! :D There are no themes to follow for prompts or fills. If, perhaps, you missed a prompt theme that you liked, or you've had any ideas that didn't really work with Tuesday's or Thursday's posts, then today's your chance to prompt 'em. Be free, and have fun! ✎
Just a few rules:
1. No more than five prompts in a row.
2. No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
3. Use the character's full name and the fandom's full name for ease in adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
4. No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
5. If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
6. If your story has possible triggers, please warn for them in the subject line!
Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt
Are today's prompts not catching your eye? No worries, because we have plenty of older prompts that just might do the trick! You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^
We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2026 collection.
If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word!
A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.