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Transcendent Kingdom

A novel

Written by Yaa Gyasi
Listen to a clip Look inside
Hardcover
$27.95 US
Knopf
On sale Sep 01, 2020 | 288 Pages | 978-0-525-65818-4
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  • English > Comparative Literature: American > African American Fiction
  • English > Literature > American Literature – 21st Century
  • About
  • Excerpt
  • Author
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Transcendent Kingdom is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

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 is 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. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.

“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

“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 and undeniable artistry, Gyasi’s latest is an eloquent examination of resilient survival.” —Booklist

“[Transcendent Kingdom] will stay with you long after you’ve finished it.” —Real Simple
1
 
Whenever I think of my mother, I picture a queen-sized bed with her lying in it, a practiced stillness filling the room. For months on end, she colonized that bed like a virus, the first time, when I was child and then again when I was a graduate student. The first time, I was sent to Ghana to wait her out. While there, I was walking through Kejetia market with my aunt when she grabbed my arm and pointed.  “Look a crazy person,” she said in Twi.  “Do you see?  A crazy person.”
 
I was mortified.  My aunt was speaking so loudly, and the man, tall with dust caked into his dreadlocks, was within earshot.  “I see. I see,” I answered in a low hiss.  The man continued past us, mumbling to himself as he waved his hands about in gestures that only he could understand. My aunt nodded, satisfied, and we kept walking past the hordes of people gathered in that agoraphobia-inducing market until we reached the stall where we would spend the rest of the morning attempting to sell knock-off handbags.  In my three months there, we sold only four bags.
 
Even now, I don’t completely understand why my aunt singled the man out to me.  Maybe she thought there were no crazy people in America, that I had never seen one before. Or maybe she was thinking about my mother, about the real reason I was stuck in Ghana that summer, sweating in a stall with an aunt I hardly knew while my mother healed at home in Alabama.  I was eleven, and I could see that my mother wasn’t sick, not in the ways that I was used to. I didn’t understand what my mother needed healing from.  I didn’t understand, but I did.  And my embarrassment at my aunt’s loud gesture had as much to do with my understanding as it did with the man who had passed us by.  My aunt was saying, “That. That is what crazy looks like.” But instead what I heard was my mother’s name.  What I saw was my mother’s face, still as lake water, the pastor’s hand resting gently on her forehead, his prayer a light hum that made the room buzz.  I’m not sure I know what crazy looks like, but even today when I hear the word I picture a split screen, the dreadlocked man in Kejetia on one side, my mother lying in bed on the other.  I think about how no one at all reacted to that man in the market, not in fear or disgust, nothing, save my aunt who wanted me to look.  He was, it seemed to me, at perfect peace, even as he gesticulated wildly, even as he mumbled. 
 
But my mother, in her bed, infinitely still, was wild inside.
Copyright © 2020 by Yaa Gyasi. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
YAA GYASI was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she held a Dean's Graduate Research Fellowship. She lives in Brooklyn.

YAA GYASI is available for select speaking engagements. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com or visit prhspeakers.com.
Photo © Peter Hurley/Vilcek Foundation
Learn more about Yaa Gyasi

link

About

Transcendent Kingdom is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

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 is 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. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.

“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

“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 and undeniable artistry, Gyasi’s latest is an eloquent examination of resilient survival.” —Booklist

“[Transcendent Kingdom] will stay with you long after you’ve finished it.” —Real Simple

Excerpt

1
 
Whenever I think of my mother, I picture a queen-sized bed with her lying in it, a practiced stillness filling the room. For months on end, she colonized that bed like a virus, the first time, when I was child and then again when I was a graduate student. The first time, I was sent to Ghana to wait her out. While there, I was walking through Kejetia market with my aunt when she grabbed my arm and pointed.  “Look a crazy person,” she said in Twi.  “Do you see?  A crazy person.”
 
I was mortified.  My aunt was speaking so loudly, and the man, tall with dust caked into his dreadlocks, was within earshot.  “I see. I see,” I answered in a low hiss.  The man continued past us, mumbling to himself as he waved his hands about in gestures that only he could understand. My aunt nodded, satisfied, and we kept walking past the hordes of people gathered in that agoraphobia-inducing market until we reached the stall where we would spend the rest of the morning attempting to sell knock-off handbags.  In my three months there, we sold only four bags.
 
Even now, I don’t completely understand why my aunt singled the man out to me.  Maybe she thought there were no crazy people in America, that I had never seen one before. Or maybe she was thinking about my mother, about the real reason I was stuck in Ghana that summer, sweating in a stall with an aunt I hardly knew while my mother healed at home in Alabama.  I was eleven, and I could see that my mother wasn’t sick, not in the ways that I was used to. I didn’t understand what my mother needed healing from.  I didn’t understand, but I did.  And my embarrassment at my aunt’s loud gesture had as much to do with my understanding as it did with the man who had passed us by.  My aunt was saying, “That. That is what crazy looks like.” But instead what I heard was my mother’s name.  What I saw was my mother’s face, still as lake water, the pastor’s hand resting gently on her forehead, his prayer a light hum that made the room buzz.  I’m not sure I know what crazy looks like, but even today when I hear the word I picture a split screen, the dreadlocked man in Kejetia on one side, my mother lying in bed on the other.  I think about how no one at all reacted to that man in the market, not in fear or disgust, nothing, save my aunt who wanted me to look.  He was, it seemed to me, at perfect peace, even as he gesticulated wildly, even as he mumbled. 
 
But my mother, in her bed, infinitely still, was wild inside.
Copyright © 2020 by Yaa Gyasi. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

YAA GYASI was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she held a Dean's Graduate Research Fellowship. She lives in Brooklyn.

YAA GYASI is available for select speaking engagements. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com or visit prhspeakers.com.
Photo © Peter Hurley/Vilcek Foundation
Learn more about Yaa Gyasi

Media

link

Additional formats

  • Transcendent Kingdom
    Transcendent Kingdom
    A novel
    Yaa Gyasi
    978-0-593-21533-3
    $30.00 US
    Paperback
    Random House Large Print
    Sep 08, 2020
  • Transcendent Kingdom
    Transcendent Kingdom
    A novel
    Yaa Gyasi
    978-0-525-65819-1
    $13.99 US
    Ebook
    Knopf
    Sep 01, 2020
  • Transcendent Kingdom
    Transcendent Kingdom
    A novel
    Yaa Gyasi
    978-0-593-21531-9
    $20.00 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    Sep 01, 2020
  • Transcendent Kingdom
    Transcendent Kingdom
    A novel
    Yaa Gyasi
    978-0-593-21533-3
    $30.00 US
    Paperback
    Random House Large Print
    Sep 08, 2020
  • Transcendent Kingdom
    Transcendent Kingdom
    A novel
    Yaa Gyasi
    978-0-525-65819-1
    $13.99 US
    Ebook
    Knopf
    Sep 01, 2020
  • Transcendent Kingdom
    Transcendent Kingdom
    A novel
    Yaa Gyasi
    978-0-593-21531-9
    $20.00 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    Sep 01, 2020

Other books by this author

  • Homegoing
    Homegoing
    Yaa Gyasi
    978-1-101-97106-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 02, 2017
  • Homegoing
    Homegoing
    Yaa Gyasi
    978-1-101-97106-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 02, 2017
Related Articles
Literature
September 24 2020

Transcendent Kingdom is Yaa Gyasi’s powerful follow-up to Homegoing

Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi’s stunning follow-up to her award-winning novel Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered story about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.   Transcendent Kingdom 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

Read more

Transcendent Kingdom is Yaa Gyasi’s powerful follow-up to Homegoing

Literature
September 24 2020
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