Homegoing

This book isn't usually something I'd pick up on my own but did anyway because it was a friend's recommendation for a book club (thanks, Denise!) and wow, am I glad I did it. What an engaging, moving, and eye-opening novel. Without being too draggy or gratuitously depressing, without being too one-sided as well, this book manages to really shed light on the cultural trauma that have faced generations of African immigrants, which continues today in the systemic racism that they face - this novel focuses on America in its second half, as the author speaks from her own experience being a first-generation Ghanaian immigrant herself.

The story starts in the 1700s with two half-sisters who are oblivious to the other's existence. One is married off to a British governor, while the other is sold into slavery. We then follow generations of their descendants through the ages, as they navigate the politics of African colonial rule on one side, and the politics of being slaves or having once been slaves in America.

“No one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free.”

with

“Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth?”

agency

“It'll be the white man's word against no word at all.”