Cassie McCullough

So Jacqueline, you've read Sue Miller's Monogamy and Rahul, you read Yaa Gyasi's Transcendent Kingdom.

And given the way that Rahul's already set up those connections with global citizens, why don't we begin there?

This is The Bookshelf on ABC Radio National, online on the ABC Listen app and wherever you get your highest quality podcasts.

I'm Cassie McCullough here with Kate Evans and guests Jacqueline Kent and Rahul Gayrola.

And the book we're turning to now is by American writer Yaa Gyasi, although that's spelt G-Y-A-S-I.

Now, she was born in Ghana, but came to America when she was about two years old.

But she returned to Ghana, imaginatively at least, in her debut novel, Homegoing.

It was a historical novel that traces many generations of one family, beginning in a castle on what was then called the Gold Coast of West Africa.

and the castles were luxurious up top with dungeons for slaves below.

And that debut novel won Jessie many awards and critical acclaim, and it was published when she was just 26.

Well, she's 31 years old now, and her second book, Transcendent Kingdom, is entirely contemporary.

It's the story of a young woman named Gifty, whose parents are from Ghana, but she was born in Alabama.

And for most of the novel, she's a PhD student studying neuroscience.

And meanwhile, her mother has spent her life working very hard, mostly as a carer for old white people.

Her father, who she refers to as the Chin Chin Man,

returned to ghana when she was small and what happened to her brother is a crucial part of the story and we do move between her childhood and her life in the present as we learn more about who she is but rahul let's head straight to university with gifty what's she studying and why

But interestingly, we as readers understand that connection between her academic work and her family, but it's not how she frames it.

Early on, she says that she wanted to do this study into neuroscience and molecular biology, because it seemed like the hardest thing you could do.

I wanted to flay any mental weakness off my body.

Why do you think that was her claim?