How long does it take to read Homegoing?
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi takes about 5 hours 52 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 52 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2016. 320 pages, about 88,000 words.
12 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 47 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 52 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 40 minutes |
The page count is the median across 32 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Homegoing is the debut historical fiction novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi, published in 2016. Each chapter in the novel follows a different descendant of an Asante woman named Maame, starting with her two daughters, who are half-sisters, separated by circumstance: Effia marries James Collins, the British governor in charge of Cape Coast Castle, while her half-sister Esi is held captive in the dungeons below. Subsequent chapters follow their children and following generations. The novel was selected in 2016 for the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for best first book, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017. It received the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for 2017, an American Book Award, and the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature.
Content warnings (AI-checked, may be incomplete)
- violence
- sexual content
- death of a child
- abuse
- war
- drug use
Subjects: African American Historical Fiction, LGBTQ historical fiction, saga, literary fiction, historical fiction, women
