“What I’m saying is I didn’t grow up with a language for, a way to explain, to parse out, my self-loathing. I grew up only with my part, my little throbbing stone of self-hate that I carried around with me to church, to school, to all those places in my life that worked, it seemed to me then, to affirm the idea that I was irreparably, fatally, wrong. I was a child who liked to be right.” (Gyasi, 39).

 

        As affirmed by her own self-evaluation, Gifty, the protagonist of Yaa Gyasi’s 2020 novel Transcendent Kingdom has always been someone determined to be “right.” In matters of religion, sex, science, and family, Gifty perseveres in her search for truth and goodness. However, the answers are not always clear; consequently, uncertainty and the acceptance that yields serenity become Gyasi’s foremost coupling of themes in Transcendent Kingdom. Following neuroscience graduate Gifty from her Alabama hometown to her Stanford lab and finally to her birthplace of Ghana, Gyasi transfers her own autobiographical heritage (plus a STEM degree) onto Gifty to create the impression of a woman of great cultural diversity who struggles to belong in any singular group. 

        In this new novel, Gyasi, the 2017 Hemingway Award winner for Homegoing (2016), continues with the themes of difference and alienation that marked her debut. While Homegoing adopts a historical approach toward the juxtaposed lives of two Ghanian sisters living through very different experiences of the transatlantic slave trade, Transcendent Kingdom demonstrates Gyasi’s strikingly poignant gift for interiority. Writing from such an intimate perspective was new to Gyasi, as she relayed in an interview with Oliver Munday for The Atlantic: “I’d never written fiction that stays with a single character for hundreds of pages; it almost felt like too much freedom.” Still, Gyasi crafts Gifty’s subtleties and nuances with such care that through Gifty’s eyes even lab mice begin to be viewed with unparalleled compassion. The pathetic display of reward-seeking behavior and risk (seeking Ensure and electric shocks) moves Gifty and the reader to teary eyes together.

        The mice tests, however, are more overarchingly emblematic of the type of humanism Gyasi promotes in Transcendent Kingdom. Much of the story revolves around Gifty’s nuclear family of four that is tragically reduced to one and a half after Gifty’s father leaves the U.S. to return to Ghana, her brother dies of an overdose, and her mother lapses into crippling depression. Yet despite the traumatic blows traded by all those Gifty loves, Gyasi offers redemption. Refusing to rely on stereotypical depictions of drug users or deadbeat moms assigned to the Black community, Gyasi aims to bare new truths about addiction, mental illness, and trauma, showing that oftentimes these afflictions are not a choice. Gifty’s credibility as an intellect insists that humans are a biologically reckless breed craving reward no matter the risk. In her words, “I grew up being taught that God gave us dominion over the animals, without ever being taught that I myself was an animal” (Gyasi, 312). Gifty exemplifies the perceived conflict of science versus religion and begins to reorder the schema of her universe, contemplating the way things are versus the way she believes they should be.

        Thus, Gyasi places all creatures on equal footing, and her explicit discussion of race and the prejudice Gifty’s family faces for being African American could not come at a more critical time for readers in the United States. Officially published on Sept. 1, 2020, Transcendent Kingdom marks the close of a summer of racial tension, violence, social protests, and riots. The injustices and hate crimes committed against African Americans are long standing; however, the recent media focus on what many deem to be acts of systemic racism within law enforcement have set the States ablaze with renewed and fervent demands for justice. The death of George Floyd, a Black man who became unconscious when an officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes during a criminal arrest in May and died shortly after, moved many American citizens to join the Black Lives Matter movement, and “antiracist” literature became the summer reading of many. Touching upon the racist remarks that adversely affect Gifty as an African American woman, Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom does beget comparison with popular, contemporary works like How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi or White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo, both of which are on trending high demand in library catalogues. Unlike these books, however, Gyasi’s work seems to be less didactic and more of a reaffirmation of self worth for the Black community. Through Gifty’s insecurities and trials in life, Gyasi makes it known that Black is beautiful and encourages African Americans to look to her protagonist as a model of strength, determination, and wholehearted goodness.

        Moreover, much of Gifty’s identity is inspired by religion. The title of Transcendent Kingdom itself signifies the novel’s preoccupation with the spiritual world, if not a theological one. Raised in the Pentecostal church herself, Gyasi defines Christianity as the single most defining and guiding principle of Gifty’s character, even when she formally leaves religion behind. Gyasi shows readers that morality is learned and that what truly matters most is not the denomination, creed, or philosophy you subscribe to but rather the idea that, as Gifty learns, it is okay to not have all the answers to life’s innumerable problems and mysteries. In our world of clashing opinions, violence, and heartbreak, one must hold on to something and bear witness to it as a light in times of darkness, reaching whatever transcendent kingdom awaits us beyond this life. In the words of Katherine, perhaps the most objectively wholesome and generous character in Gifty’s narrative, “I think it’s beautiful and important to believe in something, anything at all. I really do” (Gyasi, 340).