Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Connection. To land. To time. To blood. To fire. To water. To history. To family. To love.

Homegoing is about connection and it is moving and brilliant. I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! Even in the hard places I loved it. This goes on my list of books I give as gifts and revisit from time to time.

It starts with two girls, Effia and Esi. They don't know each other and never meet. But they have the same mother, Effie is left behind and raised by her father and his wives in late 1700's Africa and her life is tied to the slave trade on the traders side of the story. Esi lives a different life as her story is tied to the slave trade but as slave. The closest they come to each other is when Esi spends time in the dungeon under where Effia lives with her white husband.

From there the story tells us the story of each woman's decedents by following one person for a chapter and alternates between Effia's and Esi's line. We go from Gold Coast Africa all the way to a more current time in the US and back to Africa.

Each person has their place in the world because of the person who came before them. It is tied forward and back, the things that happen to a person and the choices they make begin the story of the next generation who then get to make the best or worst of where they are and thus setting the stage for the next generation.

And Homegoing is also about race and the place a skin color gives, the opportunity given just because of the package one comes in and the harm that causes and how it lasts for many generations after....
I am painfully aware that I walk around with something my peers who are POC do not just because of the package I am wrapped in and I hate it. I know it is wrong. I want to change it for all, for my son Ryan who is a young black man. To do that one of the best pieces of advice I was given and can offer is to educate yourself. If you are wanting to be a true and proper ally in the fight for racial justice you must not assume you know, read books and articles, fiction and non-fiction that shed light on the stories, experiences, feelings, of those who live the life, the Black story. Listen. Listen. Listen. And share what you hear.

(Finished August 22, 2017)