Yaa Gyasi
This week, a conversation with novelist Yaa Gyasi. Gyasi was just 26 years old when her debut, Homegoing, was published. It spans eight generations, tracing the lives of two half-sisters and their descendants from eighteenth-century Ghana to present-day America. The book garnered major critical acclaim and praise from fellow authors like Zadie Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Four years later, Gyasi has written another powerful work, Transcendent Kingdom. The protagonist, Gifty, is a doctoral candidate in neuroscience. Her mother, an immigrant from Ghana, suffers from depression and comes to stay with her. The novel examines the challenges of addiction and grief, as well as the tensions between science and faith. On September 22, 2020, Yaa Gyasi spoke with Courtney Martin about her work.