Homegoing: Setting 1 key example

Homegoing spans as many countries as it does centuries. Effia and Esi’s narratives begin in Fante and Asante land, respectively—Gyasi sets the novel in what is now modern-day Ghana. But the booming slave-trading economy soon scatters them: Esi boards one among thousands of ships that cross the Atlantic, while Effia’s lineage stays behind in continental Africa. Sons rebel and daughters leave packing, sometimes for love, survival and, at other points, new lives. Over generations and decades, the story that had started within a few tribes’ distance expands throughout entire continents, spilling into Alabama and Harlem. The novel is filled with people on the move, each of whom carries their pasts with them.