Ghana Must Go
Taiye Selasi
A stunning novel, spanning generations and continents, Ghana Must Go is a tale of family drama and forgiveness, for fans of Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Meet the Sais, a Nigerian-Ghanaian family living in the United States. A family prospering until the day father and surgeon Kweku Sai is victim of a grave injustice. Ashamed, he abandons his beautiful wife Fola and their little boys and girls, causing the family to fracture and spiral out into the world - New York, London, West Africa, New England - on uncertain, troubled journeys until, many years later, tragedy unites them. Now this broken family has a chance to heal - but can the Sais take it?
'Ghana Must Go is both a fast moving story of one family's fortunes and an ecstatic exploration of the inner lives of its members. With her perfectly-pitched prose and flawless technique, Selasi does more than merely renew our sense of the African novel: she renews our sense of the novel, period. An astonishing debut' Teju Cole, author of Open City
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About Taiye Selasi
Reviews for Ghana Must Go
Anna Funder Ghana Must Go is both a fast moving story of one family's fortunes and an ecstatic exploration of the inner lives of its members. With her perfectly-pitched prose and flawless technique, Selasi does more than merely renew our sense of the African novel: she renews our sense of the novel, period. An astonishing debut
Teju Cole, author of
Open City
An eye for the perfect detail . . . an unforgettable voice on the page . . . miss out on Ghana Must Go and you will miss one of the best new novels of the season
The Economist
Taiye Selasi is the woman the literary world is drooling over . . . [Ghana Must Go] is technically ambitious, poetically dense . . . an unpredictable family story of love, abandonment, aspiration and migration
Claire Allfree
Metro
Taiye Selasi writes with glittering poetic command, a sense of daring, and a deep emotional investment in the lives and transformations of her characters . . . a powerful portrait of a broken family
Diana Evans
Guardian
A most impressive first novel. . . She manages a generous coverage of time and space with adroit concision, along with a vibrant range of characters. The family is so convincing, with those telling problems of divided culture. Very much a novel of today
Penelope Lively Taiye Selasi is a young writer of staggering gifts and extraordinary sensitivity. Ghana Must Go seems to contain the entire world, and I shall never forget it
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of
Eat, Pray, Love
With mesmerizing craftsmanship and massive imagination [Taiye Selasi] takes the reader on an unforgettable journey across continents and most importantly deeply into the lives of the people whom she writes about. She de-"exoticizes" whole populations and demographics and brings them firmly into the readers view as complicated and complex human beings. Ghana Must Go is a big novel, elemental, meditative, and mesmerizing
Sapphire, author of
The Kid and Push
In Ghana Must Go, Selasi drives the six characters skillfully through past and present, unearthing old betrayals and unexplained grievances at a delicious pace. By the time the surviving five convene at a funeral in Ghana, we are invested in their reconciliation
which is both realistically shaky and dramatically satisfying ... Narrative gold
Elle
Selasi's ambition - to show her readers not "Africa" but one African family, authors of their own achievements and failures - is one that can be applauded no matter what accent you give the word
Nell Freudenberger
The New York Times