Summary of Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing

Summary of Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing is a novel in stories about the Atlantic slave trade and its aftermath. The novel begins with the stories of two African half-sisters of the Fante and Asante tribes: Effia and Esi. Effia is born in the late eighteenth century in Fanteland on Africa’s Gold Coast, on the night of a devastating fire near her father’s compound. Her adoptive mother, Baaba, immediately resents her, because Effia is the daughter of her father Cobbe’s house girl.

In 1775, when Effia is young, British soldiers from the Cape Coast Castle come to the village. Effia wants to marry Abeeku Badu, who is in line to be chief. But to prevent Effia from marrying him, Baaba tells Effia that she must hide the blood from her first period. She knows that as long as people think Effia is premenstrual, she won’t be permitted to marry a Fante man, per tribal customs...