Awards

• Long-listed for PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction 2021
• Short-listed for Women's Prize for Fiction 2021

Overview

"NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed novel Homegoing is ""a book of blazing brilliance"" (The Washington Post)—a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama. A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK! • Finalist for the WOMEN'S PRIZE Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed.     Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive."

Full Product Details

9781984899767

Table of Contents

Reviews

Gyasi sometimes reminds me of other writers who've addressed the immigrant experience in America -- Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyun Li in particular....As in the work of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or the Ghanaian-American short-story writer Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, the African immigrants in this novel exist at a certain remove from American racism, victims but also outsiders, marveling at the peculiar blindnesses of the locals...brilliant...Transcendent Kingdom trades the blazing brilliance of Homegoing for another type of glory, more granular and difficult to name. --Nell Freudenberger, The New York Times Book Review The novel is full of brilliantly revealing moments, sometimes funny, often poignant....[Gifty is] provokingly vital. --James Wood, The New Yorker Laser-like... A powerful, wholly unsentimental novel about family love, loss, belonging and belief that is more focused but just as daring as its predecessor, and to my mind even more successful... [Transcendent Kingdom] is burningly dedicated to the question of meaning... The pressure created gives her novel a hard, beautiful, diamantine luster. --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal A book of blazing brilliance... of profound scientific and spiritual reflection that recalls the works of Richard Powers and Marilynne Robinson... A double helix of wisdom and rage twists through the quiet lines...Thank God, we have this remarkable novel. --Ron Charles, The Washington Post A stealthily devastating novel of family, faith and identity that's as philosophical as it is personal... It's bravura storytelling by Gyasi, so different in scope, tone and style from her 2016 debut Homegoing. That, too, was brilliant literature, as expansive as Transcendent Kingdom is interior...The range Gyasi displays in just two books is staggering. --USA Today Elegant... burrows into the philosophical, exploring with complexity what it might mean for us to live without firm answers to the mysteries that wound us... The measured restraint of Gyasi's prose makes the story's challenging questions all the more potent. --The San Francisco Chronicle Poised to be the literary event of the fall. --Entertainment Weekly I would say that Transcendent Kingdom is a novel for our time (and it is) but it is so much more than that. It is a novel for all times. The splendor and heart and insight and brilliance contained in the pages holds up a light the rest of us can follow. --Ann Patchett Absolutely transcendent. A gorgeously woven narrative about a woman trying to survive the grief of a brother lost to addiction and a mother trapped in depression while pursuing her ambitions. Not a word or idea out of place. Completely different from Homegoing. THE RANGE. I am quite angry this is so good. --Roxane Gay [Transcendent Kingdom] will stay with you long after you've finished it. --Real Simple Meticulous, psychologically complex...At once a vivid evocation of the immigrant experience and a sharp delineation of an individual's inner struggle, the novel brilliantly succeeds on both counts. --Publishers Weekly [starred review] Gyasi's wise second novel pivots toward intimacy... In precise prose, Gyasi creates an ache of recognition, especially for readers knowledgeable about the wreckage of addiction. Still, she leavens this nonlinear novel with sly humor... The author is astute about childhood grandiosity and a pious girl's deep desire to be good; she conveys in brief strokes the notched, nodding hook of heroin's oblivion...final chapter that gives readers a taste of hard-won deliverance. --Kirkus Reviews [starred review] Unforgettable... Transcendent Kingdom has an expansive scope that ranges into fresh, relevant territories--much like the title, which suggests a better world beyond the life we inhabit. --BookPage [starred review] With deft agility andundeniable artistry, Gyasi's latest is an eloquent examination of resilient survival. --Booklist

ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Transcendent Kingdom trades the blazing brilliance of Homegoing for another type of glory, more granular and difficult to name. -The New York Times Book Review Laser-like. . . . A powerful, wholly unsentimental novel about family love, loss, belonging and belief that is more focused but just as daring as its predecessor, and to my mind even more successful. . . . [Transcendent Kingdom] is burningly dedicated to the question of meaning. . . . The pressure created gives her novel a hard, beautiful, diamantine luster. -The Wall Street Journal Yaa Gyasi's profoundly moving second novel takes place in the vast, fragile landscape where the mysteries of God and the certainties of science collide. Through deliberate and precise prose, the book becomes an expansive meditation on grief, religion, and family. -The Boston Globe A stealthily devastating novel of family, faith and identity that's as philosophical as it is personal. -USA Today Will stay with you long after you've finished it. -Real Simple Achingly lovely. . . . With her sophomore novel, Gyasi is narrowing her scope. Transcendent Kingdom is the story of one specific girl in one specific family: it is interior, psychological, and deeply focused on sifting through the layers of Gifty's mind as she studies and prays and experiments to try to find her way to what lies at the core of human beings. -Vox A luminous, heartbreaking and redemptive American story, Transcendent Kingdom is the mark of a brilliant writer who is just getting started. -Seattle Times Elegant. . . . Burrows into the philosophical, exploring with complexity what it might mean for us to live without firm answers to the mysteries that wound us. . . . The measured restraint of Gyasi's prose makes the story's challenging questions all the more potent. -The San Francisco Chronicle A study of origin stories and the ways they can be wielded against people, particularly ones who grew up poor and Black. . . . Gyasi has returned to her roots, and they run deeper now. -The New Republic Gyasi excels. . . . [Transcendent Kingdom] insightfully explores many pressing issues of our time, and in marrying science with faith, explores the limits and possibilities of both. -Christian Science Monitor An evocative portrayal of the immigrant experience and an astutely written character study of an individual reconciling with her past, along with her struggle with faith and science. -Chicago Review of Books Haunting. . . . Astute and timely. . . . [A] meditation on life's big themes of love and loss, and one woman's quest to understand the human condition as she grapples with both. -The Women's Review of Books Meticulous, psychologically complex. . . . At once a vivid evocation of the immigrant experience and a sharp delineation of an individual's inner struggle, the novel brilliantly succeeds on both counts. -Publishers Weekly (starred review) Unforgettable. . . . Transcendent Kingdom has an expansive scope that ranges into fresh, relevant territories-much like the title, which suggests a better world beyond the life we inhabit. -BookPage (starred review) Gyasi's contemporary novel of a woman's struggle for connection in a place where science and faith are at odds is a piercingly beautiful tale of love and forgiveness. -Library Journal Gyasi's wise second novel pivots toward intimacy. . . . In precise prose, Gyasi creates an ache of recognition, especially for readers knowledgeable about the wreckage of addiction. Still, she leavens this nonlinear novel with sly humor. -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Information

YAA GYASI was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. Her debut novel, Homegoing, won her 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 lives in Brooklyn.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available