When it was published in 2016, Yaa Gyasi’s first novel Homegoing was lauded for its broad historical, geographical, and generational sweep, tracing a sprawling family tree back to two half-sisters in 18th-century Ghana. Transcendent Kingdom (Knopf, September) also explores the Ghanaian-American immigrant experience, this time through the eyes of a neuroscientist named Gifty, who turns to a discipline called optogenetics to make sense of family tragedies and an upbringing immersed in the racism and evangelism of the American South.
Related News
Prize Recipients Carmen C. Bambach and Yaa Gyasi are honored by Carnegie Corporation's 2020 "Great Immigrants, Great Americans," campaign, which celebrates the many ways in which immigrants enrich our culture, invigorate our democracy, and contribute to our communities.
March 24, 2020
Yaa Gyasi: History is an Ongoing Story
Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing, showcased the Ghanaian-born author’s talent for its emotional portrayal of the impacts of intergenerational trauma on families in the African and African American diaspora.
April 5, 2020
Valeria Luiselli: “I Am Always Moving Between Genres, Identities, and Linguistic Communities”
Born in Mexico City, Valeria Luiselli grew up in South Korea, South Africa, and India, among other countries. The author of ‘Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions’ and ‘Lost Children Archive’ was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2019.
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2020
Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise
in Literature
Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature for deeply engaging writing that unites the twin arcs of West African and African American history, and for her relentless examination of injustices of the past and present in "Homegoing" (2016).
2020
Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise
in Literature
Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature for intelligent, distinctive fiction and nonfiction that interrogates the United States’ immigration system, and bears witness to those left voiceless by mass deportation.
2020
Vilcek Prize
in Literature
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat receives the Vilcek Prize in Literature for dazzling prose and profound understanding of our shared human condition embodied through her genre-spanning work that explores the Haitian diaspora and other personal narratives.
