ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she held a Dean’s Graduate Research Fellowship. She lives in New York City.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Homegoing
LISTEN HERE:
This special episode has a little bit of everything. The Spoilers, satiated by an unbelievable Ghaniain meal prepared by their friend Nasreen, fight through the haze of the itis to tackle some deep issues in Yaa Gyasi’s wonderful novel Homegoing. And as they do it, they have plenty of trouble remembering the names of all those characters (“they” means “Todd”). They talk about genre, clock some literary allusions, and even take on the eminent Isabel Wilkerson’s critique of the book. And maybe most important of all — they argue for at least five minutes about whether Marcus and Marjorie are in love (Duh, of course they are). You may want to pour yourself a glass of wine as you listen to this snowy Saturday night show. It goes well white both white and red…
RESOURCE LIST:
- Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
- Roots (tv show)
- William Grimes
- Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin
- Isabel Wilkerson Reviews Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing by Isabel Wilkerson (in the New York Times)
WHAT ELSE THE SPOILERS ARE READING:
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
- Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics Refugees by José Esteban Muñoz
- Heavy by Kiese Laymon
- The Changeling by Victor LaValle
- Big Machine by Victor LaValle
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
- And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa by MG Vassanji
