While traveling to Ghana on a Stanford research fellowship, Yaa Gyasi visited the Cape Coast Castle, where she learned about the role Africans played in perpetuating the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This knowledge became the impetus for her debut novel “Homegoing,” which chronicles the lives of two Ghanaian sisters and their experiences of slavery. We speak with Berkeley-based Gyasi about the novel, which has been named a New York Times notable book for 2016.
Book Review: ‘Homegoing’ by Yaa Gyasi (KQED Arts)