Next Book Group Discussion: Saturday, January 6, 10:30, in the Sanctuary
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Published in June 2016
To start the year off in keeping with
our times, our 1stUUPB Second Saturday Book Group will be meeting in
January on the first Saturday— January
6. We’ll gather in the Sanctuary at
10:30 to discuss Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, a new voice in the literary world.
By progressing through 300 years of
Ghanaian and American history, Gyasi shows consequences of the slave trade by
following seven generations of a single family. Every portrait reads like a
short story unto itself.
Gyasi, born in Ghana and raised in
Huntsville, Alabama, got the idea for this story when she visited Ghana during
college. After her family moved to the United States when she was an infant,
she had never taken a trip back. Gyasi was struck when she visited the Cape
Coast Castle by the idea of African women living in the top levels of the
castle as the wives of colonists while others were kept in the dungeon to be
sold as slaves. Gyasi used historical accounts written by Africans and
African-Americans to center each chapter of the book around important
historical moments.
While today we most often think of
slavery in the context of its historical and contemporary impact on the United
States, slavery began to exist before written history in many cultures, and,
according to some, there are still more slaves today than at any previous point
in history.
Members, friends, and community people
are welcome to these sessions, whether you’ve read the books or not! We “Read
so as to know the world.” For further information, you may contact
Dorie Maxwell at doriemaxwell@mac.com or call her at 561-301-4204.
