Exploring the Depths of the Afro - American Literary Heritage: Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing as a Case study

Abstract

African American history is the black spot in the history of humanity since it represents mankind as monsters who enjoy hurting others and feel the pleasure of looking at them crying loudly due to pain. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to shed light on the history of Afro-American literature to know why African American history is full of gloomy memories and to highlight the well-known figures in it. This paper is an analytical and descriptive study and the data are taken from relevant books, theses, essays, and journals. The cultural and historical aspects of this data through close reading and by using comparative and critical methods are studied. Since Yaa Gyasi is one of the African American authors who wants to show the real picture of black people suffering during and after slavery. It was decided to analyze her novel Homegoing. This paper ends up proving that the Afro-Americans faced without any mercy all kinds of oppression, horrors, and pains from slavery, segregation, and the white community discrimination due to their color and ethnicity as it was protruded in Homegoing. As a result, literature was seen as a perfect tool to tell the world what happened to black people and many black authors like Yaa Gyasi became famous icons in the world of literature because of their massive contributions in the field of Afro-American Literature.