Yaa Gyasi is an award-winning Ghanaian-American novelist. She is popularly known for her debut novel, 'Homegoing', published in 2016. The novel won several awards, including the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for best first book, the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" honors for 2016 and the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction.
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Yaa Gyasi Profile
Before we continue, here's a quick rundown on Yaa Gyasi's profile and a few things you'd love to know about her:Full name: Yaa Gyasi
Date of birth: 1989
Age: 31 years (2020)
Nationality: Ghanaian-American
Parents: Kwaku Gyasi (father), Sophia Gyasi (mother)
Education: Stanford University
Spouse(s):
Occupation: Writer
Religion: Christianity
Net worth:
Yaa Gyasi Biography and Educational Background
Yaa Gyasi was born in 1989 in Mampong, Ghana. Her father, Kwaku Gyasi is professor of French at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, while her mother Sophia is a nurse. Gyasi's family to the United States in 1991 when her father was completing his PhD at Ohio State University. They also lived in Illinois and Tennessee, and from the age of 10, Gyasi was raised in Huntsville, Alabama.While growing up, Gyasi recalled being very shy, then, she used to feel close to her brothers for their shared experiences as young immigrant children in Alabama, and turning to books as her 'closest friends'.
She was inspired to choose a writing career after receiving a certificate of achievement signed by LeVar Burton after submitting the first story she wrote to the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest.
Yaa Gyasi attended Grissom High School. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English at Stanford University, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a creative writing program at the University of Iowa.
Career
Yaa Gyasi began writing her debut novel while working at a startup company in San Francisco shortly after graduating from Stanford University. She, however, didn't enjoy the work and resigned after she was accepted to Iowa in 2012.Gyasi's first novel, 'Homegoing' was inspired by a 2009 trip to Ghana. It was her first since leaving the country as an infant. She completed the novel in 2015 and it was published on 7 June 2016 by Knopf Publishing. Aside from winning several international awards, 'Homegoing' was in 2019, listed in Paste as the third-greatest novel of the 2010s. On November 5, 2019, the BBC News listed the book on its list of the 100 most influential novels.
Gyasi's writing has also appeared in such publications as Callaloo, African American Review, Guernica The Guardian, and Granta.
She published her second novel, 'Transcendent Kingdom' in the United States on September 1, 2020.
Awards and Recognition
Yaa Gyasi's writing career has earned her numerous awards and recognitions, including:
• National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for best first book
• 2016: National Book Foundation's "5 under 35
• 2017: Granta Best of Young American Novelists
• PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction
• American Book Award
• 2020: Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature, Vilcek Foundation
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