Award-winning author Yaa Gyasi visits Peters Township
Yaa Gyasi reads a passage from "Homegoing" during her visit to Peters Township.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Peters Township Public Library director Myra Oleynik, left, and members of her family greet Yaa Gyasi.
Yamoussa Camara and his ensemble of percussionists performed during the event welcoming Yaa Gyasi.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Attending the reception for Yaa Gyasi are, from left, Ediri Montoya, April Jackson and Dianne Gander.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Attending the reception for Yaa Gyasi are, from left, Gina Wipperman and Jen Bock.
Attending the reception for Yaa Gyasi are, from left, Nancy A. Parker, Sharon G. Flake and Pat Easton.
Attending the reception for Yaa Gyasi are Tammy, left, and Shirley Hardy.
A first glance at the seemingly innocuous name of the Cape Coast Castle Museum in author Yaa Gyasi’s native Ghana gives no indication as to its ignoble past.
Once a hub for western Africa’s slave trade, dungeons included, the site attracts visitors who are interested in learning more about a particularly dark chapter in history.
In Gyasi’s case, the museum helped serve as inspiration for “Homegoing,” her debut novel, which chronicles the effect that human trafficking had on a family split between the United States and Ghana, across 200 years and seven generations.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Author Yaa Gyasi answers questions at the Bible Chapel’s South Hills location, where Peters Township Public Library held the program welcoming her.
After its publication in 2016, “Homegoing” proceeded rack up a remarkable series of accolades, including National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for best first book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction, the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” honors and the American Book Award.
The 27-year-old novelist paid a local visit for an event organized by the Peters Township Library Foundation and held at the Bible Chapel’s South Hills campus, during which she signed copies of “Homegoing” and participated in an informative question-and-answer session about herself and her book. Presented are some excerpts from the session.
Q. How did you choose “Homegoing” as the title, and how did you research the historical background?
A.Traditionally, the term “homegoing” refers to slave funerals. The idea is that when a slave’s body died, their spirit could return to the country from which they had been stolen.
I kind of liked the idea that these characters, many of whom ended up in a completely different place from where their ancestors are from or the place that they were born, still kind of carry a bit of that home somewhere with them.
It’s hard to quantify how much research I did – I did it alongside the writing – but it started for me with a trip to Ghana that I took in 2009. I got to visit the Cape Coast Castle and take a tour of it. And it was while I toured that I kind of started to hear things that formed the background to this story.
From there, I gathered a lot of different books and went time period by time period, and tried to do just enough research. I wanted the research to feel kind of light and atmospheric, so it didn’t feel like it was weighing the book down.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Yaa Gyasi signs a copy of “Homegoing.”
Q.You were born in Ghana; lived in Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and Alabama; studied at Stanford University in California; got your master’s at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop; and now you live in New York City. Your speaking engagements have taken you to England and Germany, as well as cities all across the United States. What are some of your favorite places? Where is home for you?
A.I’ve had a chance to meet a lot of different people and to slowly understand that we are so very informed by place, much more so, I think, than we sometimes acknowledge.
For so many of the characters in “Homegoing,” they end up in places that are not the place that they originated from, so they’re trying to figure out a new way to relate to place.
As far as my favorite place that I’ve gotten to go, I went to the Netherlands for the first time, and that was really interesting.
Hearing the relationship that different cultures have to not just the book, but to American history and Ghanaian history, has been really fascinating. So I like all the international stops. It’s interesting to hear other people talk about this book.
By Harry Funk
Staff writer
hfunk@thealmanac.net
Yaa Gyasi, center, greets Sonia Lyne-Gartside, left, and Kilolo Luckett during the Peters Township Public Library program.
Q. Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process?
A.I never write in the evenings. I like to write at home, if I can, but I don’t mind noise, and I don’t mind other people around. I just prefer to be at my desk.
The one kind of rule that I gave myself was to write 400 words every time I sat down to write. And 400 is a good goal for me because I almost never reach it. But if you write 200, you don’t feel so bad, and if you write 700, you feel like you had a really good day. So 400 was kind of how I gauged how I was doing.
Q.We’ve been told that writers don’t like this question, but we’re curious: What are you working on now?
A.I’ve started something new. I kind of have been trying to figure out a way to get deeper into it. I have to say, I’m really superstitious about talking about my work, so I’m probably not going to tell you too much about it. But it does feel very different from “Homegoing.”
I’ve heard writers say each book kind of teaches you what it means, so I’m still in that phase of listening to what this book might mean.