Yaa Gyasi

Yaa Gyasi
Born	1989 (age 34–35) Mampong, Ghana
Education	Stanford University (BA) University of Iowa (MFA)
Notable works	Homegoing (2016), Transcendent Kingdom (2020)
Notable awards	National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award PEN/Hemingway Award National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" 2020 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature

Yaa Gyasi (born 1989) is a Ghanaian American novelist. Her work, most notably her 2016 debut novel Homegoing and her 2020 novel Transcendent Kingdom, features themes of lineage, generational trauma, and Black and African identities.^[1][2] At the age of 26, Gyasi won the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" honors for 2016 and the 2017 American Book Award. She was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature in 2020.^[3] As of 2019, Gyasi lives in Brooklyn, New York.^[4]

Early life and education

Yaa Gyasi was born in Mampong, Ghana^[5] to Sophia, a nurse, and Kwaku Gyasi, a professor of French at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.^[6][7] Her family moved to the United States in 1991 so her father could complete his Ph.D. at Ohio State University.^[5][8] The family also lived in Illinois and Tennessee, and from the age of 10, Gyasi was raised in Huntsville, Alabama.^[5][9]

Gyasi recalls being shy as a child, feeling close to her brothers for their shared experiences as young immigrant children in Alabama, and turning to books as her "closest friends".^[8] She was encouraged by receiving a certificate of achievement signed by LeVar Burton for the first story she wrote, which she had submitted to the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest. At the age of 17, while attending Grissom High School, Gyasi was inspired after reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon to pursue writing as a career.^[8]

She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Stanford University, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a creative writing program at the University of Iowa.^[9][10]

Career

Shortly after graduating from Stanford, Gyasi began writing her debut novel Homegoing while working at a tech startup company in San Francisco. She resigned in 2012 when she was accepted to the University of Iowa and switched focus to writing full-time.^[10]

Homegoing was inspired by a 2009 trip to Ghana, funded by a grant to research her first book. Gyasi traveled to her mother's ancestral Ashanti home in Kumasi, visited with relatives, and toured the Cape Coast Castle, a colonial trading fort used to hold enslaved Africans before boarding ships to the Americas.^[11] This history contextualizes the novel's story, beginning with half-sisters Effia and Esi in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia weds a British commander of Cape Coast Castle, while Esi is held captive in the dungeons of the castle before being forced onto a slave ship. The following chapters alternate between the perspectives of Effia's descendent and Esi's descendants, spanning a total of seven generations to present-day United States.^[1] The effects of colonialism are tracked through each family member and the historical milestones they live through, including conflict between the Fante and Asante nations, the beginning of cocoa farming in Ghana, plantation slavery in the American South, convict labor during the Reconstruction era, the civil rights movement, and the crack epidemic of the 1980s.^[12][11]

Gyasi completed the novel in 2015 and, after numerous initial offers, accepted a seven-figure advance from Knopf.^[10] Ta-Nehisi Coates selected Homegoing for the National Book Foundation's 2016 "5 under 35" award,^[9] and the novel was also selected for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first book, and the American Book Award for contributions to diversity in American literature.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Gyasi's writing has also appeared in such publications as African American Review,^[17] Callaloo,^[18] Guernica^[19] The Guardian,^[20] and Granta.^[21] She cites Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon), Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), James Baldwin (Go Tell It on the Mountain), Edward P. Jones (Lost in the City), and Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth) as inspirations.^[8][10][22] In 2017, Gyasi was chosen by Forbes for their "30 under 30 List".^[23]

In February 2020, Knopf published Gyasi's second book Transcendent Kingdom.^[24][25] The novel features characters from a short story that Gyasi published in Guernica magazine in 2015 entitled "Inscape."^[19] Transcendent Kingdom tells the story of 28-year-old Gifty in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, from her family's migration from Ghana to Alabama, the abandonment of her father, and her mother's struggle with depression after Gifty's brother overdoses at a young age. The novel explores the effects of racism as they manifest in addiction, depression, and family instability.^[2]

Sara Collins of The Guardian described Transcendent Kingdom as a "profound follow-up to Homegoing",^[26] USA Today said "it's stealthily devastating",^[27] and The Vox,^[28] Chicago Review of Books,^[29] and The New Republic^[30] also reviewed it favorably.

In 2021, Gyasi authored the short story "Bad Blood" to be featured in The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. The story depicts a young black mother's hypochondria as an effect of the history of racism and discrimination in healthcare, citing the 1932 Tuskegee Syphilis Study.^[31]

Gyasi has been outspoken about her widespread recognition as a black author. In March 2021, she wrote an article in The Guardian about the resurgent popularity of Homegoing during the Black Lives Matter protests the previous summer. She wrote: "While I do devoutly believe in the power of literature to challenge, to deepen, to change, I also know that buying books by black authors is but a theoretical, grievously belated and utterly impoverished response to centuries of physical and emotional harm."^[32]

Awards

• 2016: National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book for Homegoing^[33]
• 2016: National Book Foundation's "5 under 35"^[34]
• 2017: American Book Award for Homegoing^[35]
• 2017: Granta Best of Young American Novelists^[36][37][38]
• 2017: PEN/Hemingway Award for Homegoing^[39]
• 2020: Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature, Vilcek Foundation^[3]
• 2020, Great Immigrants Award named by Carnegie Corporation of New York^[40]
• 2021: Women's Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for Transcendent Kingdom^[41]
• 2023: Royal Society of Literature International Writer^[42][43]

Works

• Homegoing (2016)
• Transcendent Kingdom (2020)
• "Bad Blood" in The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (2021)

References

1. Mikić, Marijana (2023). "Chapter 6 Race, Trauma, and the Emotional Legacies of Slavery in Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing". Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology. Taylor & Francis. pp. 100–114. ISBN 9781032198538.
2. Yerima, Dina (2021). "Transcendent Kingdom". Tydskrif vir Letterkunde. 28 (1). ProQuest 2599125201 – via ProQuest.
3. "Yaa Gyasi". Vilcek Foundation. Retrieved February 3, 2020.
4. Wolfe, Eli (June 28, 2016). "How Yaa Gyasi found her story in slavers' outpost". SFGATE. Retrieved May 9, 2024.
5. Maloney, Jennifer (May 26, 2016). "Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, Born in Ghana and Raised in the U.S." Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
6. Anderson-Maples, Joyce (December 2, 2016). "UAH welcomes Yaa Gyasi, author of The New York Times best-selling book Homegoing". The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
7. Haskin, Shelly (August 28, 2016). "How an Alabama author's debut novel landed her on 'The Daily Show'". AL.com. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
8. Begley, Sarah (June 5, 2016). "A 26-Year-old Looks to the Past for Her Literary Debut". Time. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
9. "Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing, 5 Under 35, 2016, National Book Foundation". www.nationalbook.org. Archived from the original on December 3, 2016. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
10. Wolfe, Eli (June 28, 2016). "How Yaa Gyasi found her story in slavers' outpost". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
11. Wolfe, Eli. "How Yaa Gyasi found her story in slavers' outpost". SFGATE. Retrieved May 9, 2024.
12. Goyal, Yogita (2019). "An Interview with Yaa Gyasi". Contemporary Literature. 60 (4): 471–490. doi:10.3368/cl.60.4.471 – via Project MUSE.
13. "Debut novelist among winners of American Book Awards". The Washington Times. Associated Press. August 4, 2017. ISSN 0190-8286.
14. Alter, Alexandra (January 17, 2017), "Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon Among National Book Critics Circle Finalists", The New York Times.
15. "PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction". PEN New England. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
16. "100 Notable Books of 2016". The New York Times. November 21, 2016. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
17. AAR African American Review.
18. "Yaa Gyasi", National Book Festival, Library of Congress.
19. Gyasi, Yaa (June 15, 2015). "Inscape". Guernica. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
20. "Yaa Gyasi: 'I write a sentence. I delete it. I wonder if it's too early for lunch'", The Guardian, October 28, 2017.
21. Gyasi, Yaa, "Leaving Gotham City", Granta 139: Best of Young American Novelists 3, April 25, 2017.
22. "Five books: The books that influenced Yaa Gyasi". Penguin. 2016. Archived from the original on January 30, 2018. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
23. "30 Under 30 2017: Media". Forbes. Retrieved October 14, 2022.
24. "Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi". www.penguin.com.au. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
25. "Transcendent Kingdom". thankyoubookshop.com. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
26. Collins, Sara (February 24, 2021). "Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi review – a profound follow-up to Homegoing". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
27. VanDenburgh, Barbara. "Review: Yaa Gyasi's 'Transcendent Kingdom' a profound story of faith, addiction and loss". USA TODAY. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
28. Grady, Constance (September 9, 2020). "In the lovely new novel Transcendent Kingdom, a neuroscientist searches for the soul". Vox. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
29. Saleem, Rabeea (September 10, 2020). "Generational Trauma and Reconciliation in Transcendent Kingdom". Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
30. Wilson, Jennifer (November 6, 2020). "Yaa Gyasi Versus the Identity Trap". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
31. "Episode 4: How the Bad Blood Started". The New York Times. September 14, 2019. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 10, 2024.
32. Gyasi, Yaa (March 20, 2021). "White people, black authors are not your medicine". The Guardian. Retrieved March 21, 2021.
33. Admin (March 16, 2017). "National Book Critics Circle: National Book Critics Circle Announces 2016 Award Winners - Critical Mass Blog". bookcritics.org. Archived from the original on March 17, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
34. "5 Under 35 2016". National Book Foundation. Retrieved May 15, 2022.
35. "2017 American Book Awards announced". Before Columbus Foundation. Archived from the original on February 9, 2019. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
36. Kellogg, Carolyn, and Michael Schaub (April 26, 2017), "Granta names 21 of the best young American novelists" Archived September 24, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, The Los Angeles Times.
37. "Granta’s list of the best young American novelists", The Guardian, April 26, 2017.
38. Onwuemezi, Natasha (April 26, 2017), "Granta reveals its Best of Young US Novelists 2017", The Bookseller.
39. Catan, Wayne (May 31, 2017). "Interview with Yaa Gyasi, 2017 PEN/Hemingway Award Winner". www.hemingwaysociety.org. The Hemingway Society. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
40. "AI pioneer named to Carnegie Corporation's annual great immigrants list". UCLA. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
41. Flood, Alison (April 29, 2021). "Women's prize for fiction shortlist entirely first-time nominees". The Guardian. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
42. RSL International Writers, Royal Society of Literature.
43. Wild, Stephi (November 30, 2023). "Twelve Writers Appointed in the Third Year of The Royal Society of Literature's International Writers Programme". Broadway World. Retrieved December 3, 2023.

External links

• Yaa Gyasi, "I'm Ghanaian-American. Am I Black?", The New York Times SundayReview Opinion, June 8, 2016
• Interview on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah (video, 5:43), August 16, 2016
• Interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers (video, 3:15), August 2, 2016
• Interview on Tavis Smiley (video, 11:34) and transcript, June 2, 2016
• Kate Kellaway, "Yaa Gyasi: 'Slavery is on people's minds. It affects us still'", The Guardian, January 8, 2017.
• "Yaa Gyasi" at Foyles.
• Alec Russell, "Yaa Gyasi: 'Racism is still the drumbeat of America'", April 20, 2018.