After creating the multi-layered multi-generational story of Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi´s second Transcendent Kingdom is equally a story, but with a more philosophical focus.
Ghanaian-American Gifty, PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Standford University School of Medicine studies the ´neural circuits of reward-seeking behavior´. Her mother, a fervent believer, suffers of chronical depression after her brother died of overdose. Surrounded by her mother´s religious fervor, Gifty grew interested in ´math and science, where the rules are laid out step by step, where if you did something exactly the way it was supposed to be done, the result would be exactly as it was expected to be´. Although not a practicant any more, she used to write letters to ´Dear God´ and will keep visiting places of worship, as many people who although left organised religion cannot break completely all the bridges of the soul.
The novel is developing on different levels the question of how and why we keep longing for things that may harm us. Either the actual drug or the spiritual one - the religion - may not bring us happiness, and may either achieve the opposite of it, however our brains may long for its nurture.
I loved how such fundamental question and topic are build as part of the story, with care and attention and fine human consideration. It may not lead to a conclusion but philosophically it request your brain to think about it. Keeping your mind busy with thinking may be also a sort of drug.
For those interested in more linguistic context, there are frequent mentions and references to Twi language - languages are my drugs of choice too.
Yaa Gyasi is one of the best articulated storytellers of her generation and I can´t wait to read her new story.
Rating: 5 stars
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