Ghanaian-American novelist Yaa Gyasi set the literary world on fire when her debut novel ‘Homegoing’ won her the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book in 2016, among other felicitations.
Since then, she has published ‘Transcendent Kingdom’, which was shortlisted for another prestigious award, the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021. And now, this second novel is being developed into a drama series by the Emmy-nominated producer Yvonne Orji for Sony Pictures Television.
Nigerian-American comedian, actress, writer, producer, and author Orji is best known for her performance as ‘Molly’ on the HBO comedy series ‘Insecure’. For her performance, she earned an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2020. Most recently, she starred in the horror-comedy film ‘The Blackening’, as well as ‘Vacation Friends 2’, the sequel to the 2021 Hulu comedy.
The story is narrated from the vantage of Gifty, a neuroscientist in training studying the behavioral patterns in mice. Bouncing back and forth between her present in the Bay Area and her past as a first-generation Ghanaian growing up in rural Alabama, Gifty is on a spiritual journey to make sense of the suffering she’s witnessed around her.
However, even as she turns to science to unravel the mystery of her family’s loss, she finds herself hungering for her innocent childhood faith! All in all, the plotline tests the power of faith as it perseveres against time!