We review the sophomore novel by Yaa Gyasi – Transcendent Kingdom – the hotly-anticipated follow-up to her astonishing debut novel Homegoing.Â
Pre-order the novel here ahead of its release on 4th March 2021.
Transcendent Kingdom is one of the most hotly-anticipated novels of the year, following the immense success of Yaa Gyasi’s 2016 debut novel Homegoing. It is always difficult to follow up a smash success of a debut that was nominated for a span of awards, but Gyasi has accomplished that in Transcendent Kingdom.Â
The novel centres around Gifty, a graduate neuroscience student, studying addiction and depression in her experiments on mice. As the story develops, it becomes clear just why this became her chosen profession – one full of hard work that could have major implications in the treatment of addiction. Having grown up in Alabama as the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, the family is torn apart when her father returns to Alabama and when her brother Nana dies of an overdose, following an opioid addiction. Gyasi places Gifty’s experiences sifting through her childhood trauma in a framework of faith – Gifty and her mother’s difficulties and complicated relationship with the white evangelical church that they attended.
