Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book PrizeA New York Times 2016 Notable BookOne of
Oprah s 10 Favorite Books of 2016NPR's Debut Novel of the YearOne of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction
Books Of 2016One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016 Homegoing is an inspiration. Ta-Nehisi Coates
The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters
separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery the other married to a British
slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power Homegoing traces the generations of family who
follow as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history
each life indeliably drawn as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present
day. Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is
married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle.
Unbeknownst to Effia her sister Esi is imprisoned beneath her in the castle s dungeons sold
with thousands of others into the Gold Coast s booming slave trade and shipped off to America
where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows
Effia s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana as the Fante and Asante nations
wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her
children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great
Migration from the coal mines of Pratt City Alabama to the jazz clubs and dope houses of
twentieth-century Harlem right up through the present day Homegoing makes history visceral
and captures with singular and stunning immediacy how the memory of captivity came to be
inscribed in the soul of a nation.
