Yaa Gyasi was born in Mampong, Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. Her first novel, Homegoing, was a Sunday Times bestseller, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best First Novel and was shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. In 2017 Yaa Gyasi was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists and in 2019 the BBC selected her debut as one of the 100 Novels that Shaped Our World.
A brilliant novel, with not a word out of place -- Caleb Azumah Nelson * Guardian, Best Books of 2021 * A piercing story of faith, science and the opioid crisis . . . Transcendent Kingdom really sings. There's bravery as well as beauty here * Observer * Transcendent Kingdom is a novel for all times Absolutely transcendent. A gorgeously woven narrative . . . not a word or idea out of place. I am quite angry this is so good * Roxane Gay * Transcendent Kingdom is a quietly magnificent novel - vivid, touching and beautifully written, and also unafraid to be, and to remain, really very sad. * i * Her equally outstanding second novel, Transcendent Kingdom, smaller in scale, is another graceful exploration of trauma reverberating through a family...introspective and intimate * Sunday Telegraph * This novel is an unflinching account of loss, but it is also a moving tribute to the ability of the human spirit to endure such tragedies * The Times * Gyasi's novel is a thoughtful analysis of a pressing social problem * Mail on Sunday * Among other things [Transcendent Kingdom] is a sharp reckoning with the tensions between race, science and religion...its scope is pared back, its register intimate - not many writers can switch style like this * Sunday Times Culture * A powerful portrayal of love and faith that reminds us how our parents' actions can ripple through generations * Telegraph *