"Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi

I read Homegoing with the Critical Consciousness Reading Group that we have at work. Our discussions focus on topic of equity, diversity, privilege, bias, etc, and are usually centered around a novel. Homegoing was a great choice for this group. It explores the history of slavery, the scars it left on collective consciousness of societies. It also explores the role the presence of a superpower and its settlers had on indigenous populations. It is an incredible read.

The book is structured as a compilation of stories from several generations within the same family. We start with two sisters in Ghana in the 1700s. Born to the same mother, they did not know about each other's existence, and by a stroke of fate, one of them marries a white soldier who oversees the rounding up of slaves headed for the Americas, and the other one of sold into slavery.

Every single story in this book is heartbreaking. Every single one is also filled with courage, resilience and unimaginable strength. In addition, I cannot help but admire Gyasi's skill as a writer. When you read her stories, you do not see words, but rather pictures: landscapes, faces, emotions. Her writing is vivid and almost cinematographic. I absolutely loved it. 5 out of 5 stars. No, 5 stars doesn't begin to describe how much I loved this book and how much it changed my perspective on the world we live in. It is because of books like this that I read. There are many good books out there, but then once in a while you stumble upon a real treasure. This was one of those cases. Do not pass it up.