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A review by booksandboardingpass
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
5.0
« Maybe Beulah was seeing something more clearly on the nights she had these dreams, a little black child fighting in her sleep against an opponent she couldn’t name come morning because in the light that opponent just looked like the world around her. Intangible evil. Unspeakable unfairness. »
« You have to understand, H. The day you called me that woman’s name, I thought, Ain’t I been through enough? Ain’t just about everything I ever had been taken away from me? My freedom. My family. My body. And now I can’t even own my name? Ain’t I deserve to be Ethe, to you at least, if nobody else? My mama gave me that name herself. I spent six good years with her before they sold me out to Louisiana to work them sugarcanes. All I had of her then was my name. That was all I had to myself too. And you wouldn’t even give me that. »
« This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others. »
« You have to understand, H. The day you called me that woman’s name, I thought, Ain’t I been through enough? Ain’t just about everything I ever had been taken away from me? My freedom. My family. My body. And now I can’t even own my name? Ain’t I deserve to be Ethe, to you at least, if nobody else? My mama gave me that name herself. I spent six good years with her before they sold me out to Louisiana to work them sugarcanes. All I had of her then was my name. That was all I had to myself too. And you wouldn’t even give me that. »
« This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others. »