In Between Two Shores: Longing, Quest, and Imitation in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing

Abstract

This article examines Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (2016), which traces the story of two half-sisters across seven generations from Ghana to America, to explicate the long-term consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (TST) on diasporic identity (Hartman, 2007; Hirsch, 2012). The study analyzes how the reformation of fragmented and lost identities creates a precarious condition for diasporic individuals and subsequent generations (van Rens, 2023). Moreover, while focusing on the characters’ negotiation of the uneasy space between cultures, languages, and historical claims, the analysis employs Bhabha’s (1994) notions of hybridity, mimicry, and third space of enunciation, alongside Cohen’s (2008) conceptualization of diaspora as an ongoing process. Through close textual analysis, the study identifies four recurring patterns in each chapter: fragmented survival, displacement, longing, and intergenerational trauma (Mohtahane et al., 2021). It argues that in Homegoing, hybridity and mimicry function not merely as theoretical concepts but as constrained strategies to manage power, resist erasure, and form new identities (Bhabha, 1994; Said, 1978). Homegoing (2016) redefines home not as a fixed location, but as something inherited, contested, rooted, and reborn in memory (Gilroy, 1993; Patrizi, 2022). This reading contributes to diaspora studies by demonstrating how Gyasi links African and African-American histories within a single lineage while preserving the record of colonial imperialism. The analysis remains embedded in the central text while employing established theoretical lenses