Transcendent Kingdom

Last updated
Transcendent Kingdom
Transcendent Kingdom (Yaa Gyasi).png
Cover of first edition
Author Yaa Gyasi
Audio read by Bahni Turpin
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date
September 1, 2020
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback), e-book, audio
Pages288
ISBN 978-0-525-65818-4 (hardcover)
OCLC 1119065931
813/.6
LC Class PS3607.Y37 T73 2020

Transcendent Kingdom is the second novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi, published in 2020 by Alfred A. Knopf. Transcendent Kingdom was found in Literary Hub to have made 17 lists of the best books of 2020. [1]

Contents

Summary

The novel follows 28-year-old Gifty, a PhD candidate in neuroscience in her fifth year at Stanford University, and her Ghanaian-American mother, who is suffering from a deep depression.

While experimenting on lab mice for her research, Gifty gets a call that her mother is not feeling well. She sends for her mother so she can take care of her and is overwhelmed by the remembrance of the first time her mother fell into a similar depression, when Gifty was 11.

Gifty's mother and her father, affectionately nick-named The Chin-chin man, were Ghanaians who met and married late. They had a brilliant son, Nana, and after his birth Gifty's mother, seeking a better life for her child, relocated to Huntsville, Alabama where a cousin of hers was studying. Gifty's mother was forced to take menial jobs, eventually become a caretaker to abusive and racist elderly patients. Gifty's father eventually relocated to America to be with his family but was only able to find unstable work as a janitor.

Gifty was born a few years later, and was an unwanted pregnancy.

The family was anchored around Nana's prodigious gifts as an athlete and their mother's fervent religious zeal which Gifty inherited. Never settling in Alabama, The Chin-chin man eventually returned to Ghana for what was initially supposed to be a short trip, never to return. Shaken by his father's abandonment, Nana quit soccer, a sport which he had been proficient in, and in high school joined basketball. After injuring his ankle in a low-stakes game Nana was prescribed opioids and quickly became addicted, seeking out heroin to allay his cravings. When Gifty is 11 her brother dies of an overdose and her mother falls into a deep depression, taking to her bed and unable to care for herself. After she tried to commit suicide Gifty is forced to seek help and is sent to Ghana while her mother recovers, staying with her maternal aunt and briefly reuniting with her estranged father.

Nana's death and Gifty's mother's attempted suicide push Gifty away from religion. A bright scholar, she attends elite universities and chooses a path in neuroscience studying addictive behavior. Her past and her continued belief in God mark her as an outsider and she has trouble opening herself up emotionally. In the present, unable to help her mother she finally reaches out to a colleague of hers who supports Gifty as she attempts to help her mother.

In an unspecified future time, after Gifty's mother has died of natural causes, a now married Gifty who is flourishing as a scientist and runs her own lab continues to attend church.

Reception

The book drew positive reviews upon publication. [2] The Washington Post named it "a book of blazing brilliance". [3] USA Today called it "stealthily devastating" [4] while Vox gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars. [5] The novel also received positive reviews from The New York Times Book Review , [6] The New Yorker , [7] The Boston Globe , [8] The Guardian, [9] Chicago Review of Books, [10] and The New Republic . [11]

Awards and nominations

"Inscape"

In 2015, in Guernica magazine, [15] Gyasi published a short story titled "Inscape," which features some of the characters in Transcendent Kingdom in somewhat different situations. In "Inscape" Gifty is a forty-one-year-old professor of English studying Gerard Manley Hopkins instead of a twenty-six-year-old neuroscientist, her mother's mental illness is more severe, Gifty's attraction to her friend Anne is more intimate ("My whole body ached at the mention of her name"), and she has no brother.

Related Research Articles

Yaa Asantewaa I was the Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire, now part of modern-day Ghana. She was appointed by her brother Nana Akwasi Afrane Okese, the Edwesuhene, or ruler, of Edwesu. In 1900, she led the Ashanti war also known as the War of the Golden Stool, or the Yaa Asantewaa War of Independence, against the British Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice McDermott</span> American writer, novelist, essayist (born 1953)

Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. She was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction.

Rachel Cusk is a British novelist and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nana Ama McBrown</span> Ghanaian actress and media personally

Felicity Ama Agyemang, also known as Nana Ama McBrown, is a Ghanaian actress, TV presenter and a music writer. She rose to prominence for her role in television series Tentacles. Later, she found mainstream success following her role in the Twi-language movie "Asoreba" and "Kumasi Yonko". She was the host of television cooking show McBrown Kitchen and entertainment talk show United Showbiz on UTV until March 2023 when she moved to Media General.

Nana is a given name that has different origins in several countries across the world. Its use as a feminine or masculine name varies culturally. It is feminine in Japan, Georgia, Serbia and Greece, and it is masculine in Ethiopia and India, and epicene in Ghana and Indonesia. In Georgia, Nana is the fifth most popular given name for girls. In Ghana, among the Akan people, particularly the Akyem, Ashanti and Akuapim peoples, Nana is used as the title of a monarch to signify their status. Furthermore, the stool name of kings and queens is always preceded by Nana. Non-royal Ghanaian people also use Nana as a given name. In some cases, they may adopt the name Nana, if they have been named after a monarch. In Ghana, one can respectfully refer to a King or Queen as Nana without mentioning their full name; much like using "Your Highness". In India, nana means father in Telugu language and grandpa in Hindi and Urdu language from mother side.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings</span> Former First Lady of Ghana

Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings is a Ghanaian politician and the widow of former President Jerry Rawlings, under whose capacity she served as the First Lady of Ghana from 4 June 1979 to 24 September 1979 and from 31 December 1981 to 7 January 2001. In 2016 she became the first woman to run for President of Ghana. In 2018, she launched her book titled It Takes a Woman.

The GUBA Awards, or Grow, Unite, Build, Africa (GUBA) Awards, formerly known as the Ghana UK-Based Achievement Awards, are organized by GUBA Enterprise, a social enterprise organization dedicated to the support and advancement of Africans in the diaspora and Africans on the continent through various socio-economic programmes and initiatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gifty Anti</span> Ghanaian journalist and broadcaster (born 1970)

Oheneyere Gifty Anti is a Ghanaian journalist and broadcaster. She is the host of the StandpointArchived 2021-05-26 at the Wayback Machine programme; which discusses issues affecting women on Ghana Television.

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah is a Ghanaian-American writer, editor, journalist and public speaker, whose name at birth was Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby. She is best known for her 1998 memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression. Her short story "When a Man Loves a Woman" was shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayesha Harruna Attah</span> Ghanaian-born fiction writer (born 1983)

Ayesha Harruna Attah is a Ghanaian-born fiction writer. She lives in Senegal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaa Gyasi</span> Ghanaian-American novelist

Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian-American novelist. Her debut novel Homegoing, published in 2016, won her, at the age of 26, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction, the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" honors for 2016 and the American Book Award. She was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature in 2020. As of 2016, Gyasi lives in Berkeley, California.

<i>Homegoing</i> (Gyasi novel) 2016 novel by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing is the debut historical fiction novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi, published in 2016. Each chapter in the novel follows a different descendant of an Asante woman named Maame, starting with her two daughters, who are half-sisters, separated by circumstance: Effia marries James Collins, the British governor in charge of Cape Coast Castle, while her half-sister Esi is held captive in the dungeons below. Subsequent chapters follow their children and following generations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gifty Twum-Ampofo</span> Ghanaian politician (born 1967)

Gifty Twum-Ampofo is a Ghanaian politician and a Member of Parliament of the New Patriotic Party. She is currently the Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North constituency in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Ampofo is the deputy minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection in Ghana.

Gifty Acheampong is Ghanaian women's football forward. She played in the Turkish Women's First League for 1207 Antalya Döşemealtı Belediye Spor with jersey number 19. She was a member of the Ghana women's U-17 team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah-Adjei</span> Ghanaian politician

Oheneba Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah-Adjei is a Ghanaian politician and the member of parliament for Akropong Constituency in the Eastern Region. She is a member of the New Patriotic Party and is currently the Ghanaian deputy minister of Trade & Industry. She was formerly Deputy Minister of Information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tina Gifty Mensah</span> Ghanaian politician (born 1964)

Tina Gifty Naa Ayele Mensah is a Ghanaian politician and the member of parliament for Weija-Gbawe constituency. She is a member of the New Patriotic Party and was appointed into office as deputy Health Minister by Nana Addo on 15 March 2017.

Serwaa Amihere is a Ghanaian broadcast journalist and news presenter who currently works with GHOne TV. She won the Television Female Newscaster of the Year Award at the 2018 Radio and Television Personality Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megha Majumdar</span> Indian writer

Megha Majumdar is an Indian novelist who lives in New York City. Her debut novel, A Burning, was a New York Times best seller, won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar award in 2021 and a Whiting Award in 2022.

Mercy Asiedu is a Ghanaian veteran actress who has contributed to the growth of the movie industry. She is known for the role she played in Concert Party and Asoreba. She is also known as being one of the popular Kumawood actresses starring in several roles in the 2000s.

Nana Ansah Kwao IV also known by the name Nana Kwao Misa, is a Ghanaian Traditional Ruler and a television and radio broadcast journalist. He is the Chief of Akwamu Adumasa and the host of That's My Opinion on Joy FM.

References

  1. ↑ Temple, Emily (2020-12-15). "The Ultimate Best Books of 2020 List". Literary Hub. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  2. ↑ "Book Marks reviews of Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi". Book Marks. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  3. ↑ Charles, Ron (August 25, 2020). "Yaa Gyasi's 'Transcendent Kingdom' is a book of blazing brilliance". The Washington Post . Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  4. ↑ VanDenburgh, Barbara (September 1, 2020). "Review: Yaa Gyasi's 'Transcendent Kingdom' a profound story of faith, addiction and loss". USA Today . Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  5. ↑ Grady, Constance (September 9, 2020). "In the ruminative new novel Transcendent Kingdom, a neuroscientist searches for the soul". Vox . Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  6. ↑ Freudenberger, Nell (August 31, 2020). "In Yaa Gyasi's New Novel, a Young Scientist Tries to Understand Her Family's Pain". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  7. ↑ Wood, James (September 7, 2020). "Yaa Gyasi Explores the Science of the Soul". The New Yorker. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  8. ↑ Mengiste, Maaza (September 3, 2020). "Faith and fury in 'Transcendent Kingdom'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  9. ↑ Collins, Sara (February 24, 2021). "Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi review – a profound follow-up to Homegoing". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  10. ↑ Saleem, Rabeea (September 10, 2020). "Generational Trauma and Reconciliation in "Transcendent Kingdom"". Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  11. ↑ Wilson, Jennifer (November 6, 2020). "Yaa Gyasi Versus the Identity Trap". The New Republic. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  12. ↑ "2021 Winners". Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence . 18 October 2020. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Première sélection du Prix Médicis 2020 : 15 romans français dont "Yoga" d'Emmanuel Carrère et 13 ouvrages étrangers en lice". France Info (in French). 14 September 2020. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  14. ↑ Flood, Alison (2021-04-29). "Women's prize for fiction shortlist entirely first-time nominees". the Guardian. Retrieved 2021-04-29.
  15. ↑ Gyasi, Yaa (June 15, 2015). "Inscape". Guernica (The Boundaries of Taste). Retrieved 14 August 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.