Debut Author Snapshot: Yaa Gyasi
Posted by Goodreads on June 6, 2016
In her much anticipated debut novel, Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi takes the reader on a bewitching, eye-opening journey through seven generations and nearly 300 years of history—a journey rooted in the horrors of the slave trade in Ghana and the United States and that has reverberations up until the present day.
Ghana-born, U.S.-raised Gyasi, 26, first thought of the idea for her book while touring Cape Coast Castle on Ghana's Gold Coast, where slaves were held in fetid dungeons before being shipped across the Atlantic. Homegoing focuses on two half-sisters born into different tribes and unknown to each other. One is sold into slavery and transported to America; the other is married to a British officer and housed in luxury in the castle. The book follows both women's ancestral lines, devoting one chapter to a character from each generation, as they weather everything from tribal warfare and plantation life to the Civil War and heroin addiction in 20th-century Harlem to today.
Gyasi tells Goodreads how she created the epic debut that's being compared with Alex Haley's Roots and talks about the writers who inspire her.
Goodreads: Homegoing spans generations and continents. With such an epic scope in mind, how did you begin? Where did you find the first kernel of the story?
Yaa Gyasi: The idea began, for me, in the same place the novel begins: Ghana. I had received a grant from Stanford University to travel there and conduct research for a novel. I'd had a different idea in mind, but I wasn't feeling inspired by it. On a whim a friend and I decided to visit the Cape Coast Castle, a slave castle in Ghana's Central Region. It was there, touring the castle, thinking about how vastly different life upstairs, where the soldiers lived, and downstairs, where the slaves were held, must have been that I realized what I truly wanted to write about.
GR: Fourteen chapters, 14 very specific choices for character, time, and place. Did you try out other chapter settings or other character ideas that you discarded? How did you zero in on your set of 14?
YG: A couple of the characters changed a bit from first draft to last, but for the most part all of the settings and characters are the same. I wrote the novel chronologically, and I didn't outline, but I did sketch out a family tree that I kept on the wall above my desk as I worked, and that really helped me to stay grounded in character and in family. I wanted each character to feel, in some way, as though he were reacting to decisions that his parents had made. For example, in my own life, I can say that if my parents hadn't moved to America, I would most likely still be living in Ghana. My entire life would be different. These kind of crossroad moments came up for my characters countless times, and every time one did, I would think about what it meant for that character's child and for the rest of the family.
GR: In the course of your historical research, what surprised you? What were the most difficult details to get right?
YG: One of the chapters takes place right after the main character, H, is arrested and sold by the state of Alabama to a coal mining company through the convict leasing system of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This system, which basically made it profitable to criminalize and reenslave black men at the end of the Civil War, was something that I had never heard about, and I was surprised that I had never studied it in school. H's chapter was also difficult to get right because I knew so little about mining and a good portion of it takes place in a coal mine. In fact, I think most of the difficult details to get right were those that were about the minutia of performing tasks that I knew nothing about—mining or ship caulking, even cooking. These were moments where I had to pull myself out of the story and go do more research.
GR: Goodreads reviewers have compared Homegoing with One Hundred Years of Solitude. Did you turn to any authors or certain generational novels for inspiration?
YG: One Hundred Years of Solitude is right on the nose. I love that book, and I think that what I took from it, more than style or voice or structure, was permission. Reading García Márquez made me feel expansive and free to at least try anything. Also, seeing the family tree at the front of the novel didn't hurt. Other authors who I always feel inspired by include James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Edward P. Jones.
GR: What's next for you as a writer?
YG: I'm working on another novel. It's still in the early stages, but I'm enjoying it so far.
Gyasi tells Goodreads how she created the epic debut that's being compared with Alex Haley's Roots and talks about the writers who inspire her.

Cape Coast Castle, a slave castle in Ghana's Central Region, which inspired Gyasi to write Homegoing. The Door of No Return is also the title of a book by William St. Clair about the castle and slave trade, which Gyasi read as part of her research. (Source: Yaa Gyasi)
Yaa Gyasi: The idea began, for me, in the same place the novel begins: Ghana. I had received a grant from Stanford University to travel there and conduct research for a novel. I'd had a different idea in mind, but I wasn't feeling inspired by it. On a whim a friend and I decided to visit the Cape Coast Castle, a slave castle in Ghana's Central Region. It was there, touring the castle, thinking about how vastly different life upstairs, where the soldiers lived, and downstairs, where the slaves were held, must have been that I realized what I truly wanted to write about.
GR: Fourteen chapters, 14 very specific choices for character, time, and place. Did you try out other chapter settings or other character ideas that you discarded? How did you zero in on your set of 14?
YG: A couple of the characters changed a bit from first draft to last, but for the most part all of the settings and characters are the same. I wrote the novel chronologically, and I didn't outline, but I did sketch out a family tree that I kept on the wall above my desk as I worked, and that really helped me to stay grounded in character and in family. I wanted each character to feel, in some way, as though he were reacting to decisions that his parents had made. For example, in my own life, I can say that if my parents hadn't moved to America, I would most likely still be living in Ghana. My entire life would be different. These kind of crossroad moments came up for my characters countless times, and every time one did, I would think about what it meant for that character's child and for the rest of the family.

Cannons at Cape Coast Castle. (Source: Yaa Gyasi)
YG: One of the chapters takes place right after the main character, H, is arrested and sold by the state of Alabama to a coal mining company through the convict leasing system of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This system, which basically made it profitable to criminalize and reenslave black men at the end of the Civil War, was something that I had never heard about, and I was surprised that I had never studied it in school. H's chapter was also difficult to get right because I knew so little about mining and a good portion of it takes place in a coal mine. In fact, I think most of the difficult details to get right were those that were about the minutia of performing tasks that I knew nothing about—mining or ship caulking, even cooking. These were moments where I had to pull myself out of the story and go do more research.

A plaque at Cape Coast Castle. (Source: Yaa Gyasi)
YG: One Hundred Years of Solitude is right on the nose. I love that book, and I think that what I took from it, more than style or voice or structure, was permission. Reading García Márquez made me feel expansive and free to at least try anything. Also, seeing the family tree at the front of the novel didn't hurt. Other authors who I always feel inspired by include James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Edward P. Jones.
GR: What's next for you as a writer?
YG: I'm working on another novel. It's still in the early stages, but I'm enjoying it so far.
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Malia
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Jun 08, 2016 02:06AM

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The Door of No Return still makes me cringe.
When there I was reminded of the show Roots when Kunta Kinte (sp?) is stolen from his family. Recently watched the new Roots & again I thought of the awful place in Ghana.
I am really looking forward to reading Ms. Gyasi's book.




