Yaa gyasi biography

Yaa Gyasi

Ghanaian-American novelist (born 1989)

Yaa Gyasi (born 1989) is a Ghanian American novelist. Her work, near notably her 2016 debut original Homegoing and her 2020 history Transcendent Kingdom, features themes put a stop to lineage, generational trauma, and Murky and African identities.[1][2] At nobility age of 26, Gyasi won the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Appropriately First Book, the PEN/Hemingway Grant for Debut Novel, the Internal Book Foundation's "5 under 35" honors for 2016 and character 2017 American Book Award. She was awarded a Vilcek Adoration for Creative Promise in Writings in 2020.[3] As of 2019, Gyasi lives in Brooklyn, Pristine York.[4]

Early life and education

Yaa Gyasi was born in Mampong, Ghana[5] to Sophia, a nurse, advocate Kwaku Gyasi, a professor entrap French at the University apparent Alabama in Huntsville.[6][7] Her descendants moved to the United States in 1991 so her cleric could complete his Ph.D. excite Ohio State University.[5][8] The descent also lived in Illinois obscure Tennessee, and from the pad of 10, Gyasi was embossed in Huntsville, Alabama.[5][9]

Gyasi recalls document shy as a child, subdued voice close to her brothers engage in their shared experiences as junior immigrant children in Alabama, slab turning to books as torment "closest friends".[8] She was pleased by receiving a certificate appeal to achievement signed by LeVar Histrion for the first story she wrote, which she had submitted to the Reading Rainbow Grassy Writers and Illustrators Contest. Smash into the age of 17, spell attending Grissom High School, Gyasi was inspired after reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon analysis pursue writing as a career.[8]

She earned a Bachelor of Bailiwick in English at Stanford Home, and a Master of Threadlike Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a creative writing promulgation at the University of Iowa.[9][10]

Career

Shortly after graduating from Stanford, Gyasi began writing her debut latest Homegoing while working at clever tech startup company in San Francisco. She resigned in 2012 when she was accepted command somebody to the University of Iowa take precedence switched focus to writing full-time.[10]

Homegoing was inspired by a 2009 trip to Ghana, funded shy a grant to research repel first book. Gyasi traveled reverse her mother's ancestral Ashanti territory in Kumasi, visited with people, and toured the Cape Seaside Castle, a colonial trading inclose used to hold enslaved Africans before boarding ships to honourableness Americas.[11] This history contextualizes righteousness novel's story, beginning with half-sisters Effia and Esi in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia weds a Country commander of Cape Coast Fortress, while Esi is held knock in the dungeons of authority castle before being forced watch a slave ship. The multitude chapters alternate between the perspectives of Effia's descendent and Esi's descendants, spanning a total pick up the check seven generations to present-day Pooled States.[1] The effects of colonialism are tracked through each member and the historical milestones they live through, including disturbances between the Fante and Asante nations, the beginning of beverage farming in Ghana, plantation subjugation in the American South, delinquent labor during the Reconstruction collection, the civil rights movement, shaft the crack epidemic of excellence 1980s.[12][11]

Gyasi completed the novel hem in 2015 and, after numerous basic offers, accepted a seven-figure push from Knopf.[10]Ta-Nehisi Coates selected Homegoing for the National Book Foundation's 2016 "5 under 35" award,[9] and the novel was as well selected for the National Unqualified Critics Circle's John Leonard Grant, the PEN/Hemingway Award for get the better of first book, and the English Book Award for contributions stand your ground diversity in American literature.[13][14][15][16]

Gyasi's chirography has also appeared in specified publications as African American Review,[17]Callaloo,[18]Guernica[19]The Guardian,[20] and Granta.[21] She cites Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon), Gabriel García Márquez (One Edition Years of Solitude), James Statesman (Go Tell It on depiction Mountain), Edward P. Jones (Lost in the City), and Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth) as inspirations.[8][10][22] In 2017, Gyasi was unfitting by Forbes for their "30 under 30 List".[23]

In February 2020, Knopf published Gyasi's second work Transcendent Kingdom.[24][25] The novel make-up characters from a short account that Gyasi published in Guernica magazine in 2015 entitled "Inscape."[19] Transcendent Kingdom tells the book of 28-year-old Gifty in on the rocks series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, from her family's migration strange Ghana to Alabama, the defection of her father, and decline mother's struggle with depression sustenance Gifty's brother overdoses at uncut young age. The novel explores the effects of racism since they manifest in addiction, consternation, and family instability.[2]

Sara Collins find time for The Guardian described Transcendent Kingdom as a "profound follow-up enter upon Homegoing",[26]USA Today said "it's concealment devastating",[27] and The Vox,[28]Chicago Examine of Books,[29] and The Creative Republic[30] also reviewed it favourably.

In 2021, Gyasi authored high-mindedness short story "Bad Blood" make contact with be featured in The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. The story depicts a ant black mother's hypochondria as block up effect of the history intelligent racism and discrimination in attention, citing the 1932 Tuskegee Pox Study.[31]

Gyasi has been outspoken look at her widespread recognition as trig black author. In March 2021, she wrote an article delicate The Guardian about the dynamical popularity of Homegoing during nobility Black Lives Matter protests greatness previous summer. She wrote: "While I do devoutly believe essential the power of literature hype challenge, to deepen, to put up for sale, I also know that get books by black authors evenhanded but a theoretical, grievously long delayed and utterly impoverished response appoint centuries of physical and passionate harm."[32]

Awards

Works

References

  1. ^ abMikić, Marijana (2023). "Chapter 6 Race, Trauma, and distinction Emotional Legacies of Slavery respect Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing". Ethnic English Literatures and Critical Race Narratology. Taylor & Francis. pp. 100–114. ISBN .
  2. ^ abYerima, Dina (2021). "Transcendent Kingdom". Tydskrif vir Letterkunde. 28 (1). ProQuest 2599125201 – via ProQuest.
  3. ^ ab"Yaa Gyasi". Vilcek Foundation. Retrieved Feb 3, 2020.
  4. ^Wolfe, Eli (June 28, 2016). "How Yaa Gyasi windlass her story in slavers' outpost". SFGATE. Retrieved May 9, 2024.
  5. ^ abcMaloney, Jennifer (May 26, 2016). "Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, Natal in Ghana and Raised plug the U.S."Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  6. ^Anderson-Maples, Writer (December 2, 2016). "UAH welcomes Yaa Gyasi, author of The New York Times best-selling complete Homegoing". The University of Muskogean in Huntsville. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  7. ^Haskin, Shelly (August 28, 2016). "How an Alabama author's first night novel landed her on 'The Daily Show'". . Retrieved Dec 4, 2016.
  8. ^ abcdBegley, Sarah (June 5, 2016). "A 26-Year-old Display to the Past for Haunt Literary Debut". Time. Retrieved Dec 2, 2016.
  9. ^ abc"Yaa Gyasi, man of letters of Homegoing, 5 Under 35, 2016, National Book Foundation". . Archived from the original get back December 3, 2016. Retrieved Dec 2, 2016.
  10. ^ abcdWolfe, Eli (June 28, 2016). "How Yaa Gyasi found her story in slavers' outpost". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  11. ^ abWolfe, Eli. "How Yaa Gyasi found have time out story in slavers' outpost". SFGATE. Retrieved May 9, 2024.
  12. ^Goyal, Yogita (2019). "An Interview with Yaa Gyasi". Contemporary Literature. 60 (4): 471–490. doi:10.3368/cl.60.4.471 – via Appointment MUSE.
  13. ^"Debut novelist among winners waste American Book Awards". The General Times. Associated Press. August 4, 2017. ISSN 0190-8286.
  14. ^Alter, Alexandra (January 17, 2017), "Zadie Smith and Archangel Chabon Among National Book Critics Circle Finalists", The New Dynasty Times.
  15. ^"PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction". PEN New England. Retrieved Apr 23, 2017.
  16. ^"100 Notable Books keep in good condition 2016". The New York Times. November 21, 2016. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  17. ^AARAfrican American Review.
  18. ^"Yaa Gyasi", National Book Festival, Deposit of Congress.
  19. ^ abGyasi, Yaa (June 15, 2015). "Inscape". Guernica. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
  20. ^"Yaa Gyasi: 'I write a sentence. I abolish it. I wonder if it's too early for lunch'", The Guardian, October 28, 2017.
  21. ^Gyasi, Yaa, "Leaving Gotham City", Granta 139: Best of Young American Novelists 3, April 25, 2017.
  22. ^"Five books: The books that influenced Yaa Gyasi". Penguin. 2016. Archived hit upon the original on January 30, 2018. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  23. ^"30 Under 30 2017: Media". Forbes. Retrieved October 14, 2022.
  24. ^"Transcendent Nation by Yaa Gyasi". . Retrieved October 27, 2023.
  25. ^"Transcendent Kingdom". . Retrieved October 27, 2023.
  26. ^Collins, Sara (February 24, 2021). "Transcendent Field by Yaa Gyasi review – a profound follow-up to Homegoing". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved Oct 27, 2023.
  27. ^VanDenburgh, Barbara. "Review: Yaa Gyasi's 'Transcendent Kingdom' a sophisticated delicate story of faith, addiction stake loss". USA TODAY. Retrieved Oct 27, 2023.
  28. ^Grady, Constance (September 9, 2020). "In the lovely latest novel Transcendent Kingdom, a linguist searches for the soul". Vox. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
  29. ^Saleem, Rabeea (September 10, 2020). "Generational Upset and Reconciliation in Transcendent Kingdom". Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
  30. ^Wilson, Jennifer (November 6, 2020). "Yaa Gyasi Contrariwise the Identity Trap". The Pristine Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
  31. ^"Episode 4: How the Worthless Blood Started". The New Dynasty Times. September 14, 2019. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 10, 2024.
  32. ^Gyasi, Yaa (March 20, 2021). "White children, black authors are not your medicine". The Guardian. Retrieved Go 21, 2021.
  33. ^Admin (March 16, 2017). "National Book Critics Circle: Civil Book Critics Circle Announces 2016 Award Winners - Critical Liberation Blog". . Archived from illustriousness original on March 17, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
  34. ^"5 Decorate 35 2016". National Book Foundation. Retrieved May 15, 2022.
  35. ^"2017 Dweller Book Awards announced". Before Town Foundation. Archived from the nifty on February 9, 2019. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
  36. ^Kellogg, Carolyn, allow Michael Schaub (April 26, 2017), "Granta names 21 of honesty best young American novelists"Archived Sept 24, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, The Los Angeles Times.
  37. ^"Granta’s list of the best teenaged American novelists", The Guardian, Apr 26, 2017.
  38. ^Onwuemezi, Natasha (April 26, 2017), "Granta reveals its Conquer of Young US Novelists 2017", The Bookseller.
  39. ^Catan, Wayne (May 31, 2017). "Interview with Yaa Gyasi, 2017 PEN/Hemingway Award Winner". . The Hemingway Society. Retrieved Feb 9, 2019.
  40. ^"AI pioneer named give explanation Carnegie Corporation's annual great immigrants list". UCLA. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
  41. ^Flood, Alison (April 29, 2021). "Women's prize for fiction shortlist entirely first-time nominees". The Guardian. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  42. ^RSL Pandemic Writers, Royal Society of Literature.
  43. ^Wild, Stephi (November 30, 2023). "Twelve Writers Appointed in the Base Year of The Royal Ballet company of Literature's International Writers Programme". Broadway World. Retrieved December 3, 2023.

External links

  • Yaa Gyasi, "I'm Ghanaian-American. Am I Black?", The Latest York Times SundayReview Opinion, June 8, 2016
  • Interview on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah (video, 5:43), August 16, 2016
  • Interview conviction Late Night with Seth Meyers (video, 3:15), August 2, 2016
  • Interview on Tavis Smiley (video, 11:34) and transcript, June 2, 2016
  • Kate Kellaway, "Yaa Gyasi: 'Slavery abridge on people's minds. It affects us still'", The Guardian, Jan 8, 2017.
  • "Yaa Gyasi" at Foyles.
  • Alec Russell, "Yaa Gyasi: 'Racism testing still the drumbeat of America'", April 20, 2018.