if I could go back in time, I would attend Mina’s wedding in December 2013, I would have paid the 500 cfa to ride on the back of a bedouin camel in Northern Togo on New Year’s Day in 2012, and I would have been more curious about my night guard Alphonse’s life. None of these choices would have changed my life in any significant way, but because they constitute moments of self-absorption and egocentrism I can never get back. 

Homegoing follows the story of two half-sisters and their descendants from the Gold Coast (Ghana) from the beginning of British colonialism and the slave trade to modern day. In Ghana, the protagonists hover on the edges of a family involved in the slave trade, while across the Atlantic their family members experience slavery and discrimination in a myriad of forms. Spanning a large breadth of human experiences, the characters retain a strong sense of themselves while facing