Dear HAW! friends,
We really hope that this last week of the fall semester is not too heavy, and that you’ll soon be done with papers, finals, and grading!
As it’s tradition with HAW!, we picked a book to read over winter break: Yaa Gyasi’s début novel Homegoing.
The novel follows the parallel paths of two sisters, born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.
The book received significant critical acclaim. It was selected in 2016 for the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” award, the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for best first book, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017. It also received the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for 2017, an American Book Award, and the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature. We hope that you will enjoy it!
We will gather to discuss the novel on Thursday, February 11, at 8 pm, on Zoom. Shoot us an email for the Zoom link.
We wish you a very relaxing break (hopefully with very few Zoom meetings, or only the fun ones!).
Happy Holidays!
All the best,
Benedetta & Kelsey
Historians are Writers! 