CBC Book for 2018-19: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Winner of the PEN/ Hemingway AwardWinner of the NBCC’s John Leonard Award
Shortlisted for the British Book Award – Debut of the Year
A New York Times Notable Book
Coffee
One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, Time, Oprah.com, Harper’s Bazaar, San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Esquire, Elle, Paste, Entertainment Weekly, the Skimm, PopSugar, Minneapolis Star Tribune, BuzzFeed, The Guardian, Financial Times
Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.
Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.
Community Book Connection
Each year the college selects a book that it recommends to the community.Students are urged to read the book and faculty members are encouraged to include it in their courses. A series of cultural and academic activities—film screenings, theatrical performances, dance and musical concerts, debates, panel discussions, and lectures—are organized to support the project
The goals of this interdisciplinary literacy program are to enhance student and community learning, to strengthen our common human bonds, and to demonstrate the vital connection between classroom learning and social issues in the broader community.
