Homegoing

About the book

Beginning in eighteenth-century Ghana, the narrative follows the diverging lineages of two half-sisters, Effia and Esi. Effia marries a British slave trader and lives within Cape Coast Castle, while Esi is imprisoned in the dungeons below before being sold into the American South. Across eight generations, each chapter focuses on a descendant as they navigate the shifting landscapes of the Fante-Asante wars, British colonization, American Jim Crow laws, and the Great Migration, eventually culminating in a meeting between their twentieth-century heirs.

Readers interested in the structural evolution of systemic racism and the mechanics of historical trauma will find a detailed mapping of how distinct political systems shape family identity over centuries. The book provides a technical look at the African diaspora’s origins and the long-term demographic effects of the slave trade on both continents. A reader walks away with a concrete understanding of how individual lives are tethered to ancestral legal and social frameworks, illustrating the direct connection between colonial history and modern racial disparities.

Details

Published

2016

Language

EN