Ghana Must Go

by Taiye Selasi

A “buoyant” and “rapturous” debut novel (The Wall Street Journal) about the transformative power of unconditional loveElectric, exhilarating, and beautifully crafted, Ghana Must Go introduces the world to Taiye Selasi, a novelist of extraordinary talent. In a sweeping narrative that takes readers from Accra to Lagos to London to New York, it is at once a portrait of a modern family and an exploration of the importance of where we come from to who we are.A renowned surgeon and failed husband, Kweku Sai dies suddenly at dawn outside his home in suburban Accra. The news of his death sends a ripple around the world, bringing together the family he abandoned years before. Moving with great elegance through time and place, Ghana Must Go charts their circuitous journey to one another and, along the way, teaches us that the truths we speak can heal the wounds we hide.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Ghana, Contemporary, African Literature, Literary Fiction, Book Club

348 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2013

About the author

Born in London to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents, Taiye Selasi was raised in Massachusetts. She graduated summa cum laude from Yale before returning to England to earn an M.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford. In 2006 Taiye joined the WGAE Screenwriting Lab at Colubmia University, studying under Oscar nominee Zach Sklar (JFK). Sid Ganis will produce her first feature WHITE GIRL, co-written with policy expert and MSNBC contributor Heather McGhee, with Kasi Lemmons (ON BEAUTY) attached to direct, Keke Palmer (AKEELAH & THE BEE) to star. Taiye worked in television production before committing full-time to fiction, screenwriting, and photography. An avid traveler, she aims to visit 100 countries by the age of 50. She lives in Rome.

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real talk, the first third or so of the book is a damn mess--slow, not fully realized, kind of irritating because it could be better with.... more editing, perhaps, or more care. BUT. The last 2/3 of the book is outstanding and electric. If you are an immigrant or child of immigrants you will feel like this book knows you, down to your bones. And you will know this book, down to its bones. The prose style is original and as raw as it is poetic. The narrative structure is also intriguing. Selasi is clearly a young writer but she has a whole lot of talent. Please read this book and forgive it's rough beginnings.

[Karen·]

"So what d'you reckon, did you fall for the hype on this one?"
"Well, yes, to a certain extent. I mean with over 100,000 new books being published each year in the UK alone, there's no way to escape the danger of being led down the marketing path really, is there? I mean I read some reviews, but they've all been blinded too, by the celebrity endorsements from Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie, and they can hardly fail to be impressed by the appeal of a strikingly good-looking young woman author, it makes for an attractive opener on the front page of the review section, doesn't it? So yes, once I'd seen that amazing portrait of her on the front page of the literature supplement in Die Zeit, wearing a purple quilted coat that on anyone else would have reminded me of a dressing gown, and then read about her, yes, she got lodged in my mind as worth looking out for."
"You're just influenced by her appearance? How shallow."
"I don't think I'm entirely guiltless there, but it's more the recognizability of the image than the mere fact that she's a looker. Because having seen her on the cover of Die Zeit, I then recognized her as the very same when she appeared in the latest Granta 123: The Best of Young British Novelists 4. Actually, I probably only did recognize her again because she was wearing the same quilted coat for the Granta photo shoot."

"Aha! the coat it was what done it!"
"Yeah, and the gloves - did you see those bad-ass gloves? So I remembered her. But I did test out the water before I went for the novel: I read her piece Driver in Granta and thought it was terrific, I loved it. It starts:
I am the full-time driver here. I am not going to kill my employers. I have read that drivers do that now. I will just make a few observations.
I mean wow! How could anyone resist that? That short story plays around with preconceptions and clichés and identity and roles and facades."
"So you fooled yourself into thinking that you'd made up your own mind, based on your reading of a short story? Without being manipulated?"
"Probably, yes. Self deception is an under-valued art. Anyway, guess what happened then?"
"What?"
"You'd never guess this: my sister-in-law gave me Ghana Must Go for my birthday."
"Well, why wouldn't she? She knows you like reading."
"Yes, yes, yes, but she's been remarkably inept at selecting thus far: either something I didn't want (Jodi Picoult, I ask you!), or something spot on because I'd already read it. Even this time round it wasn't quite the thing; she gave it to me in German originally. I got it changed - I mean for goodness sake, why would I want to read a translation of a book that was written in my own language? Pfff."
"It can't be easy choosing a book for someone as picky as you."
"True enough. You have to admire her determination."
"So to get back to this novel, what do you think, does it stand up to the hype?"
"It can't really, can it? It never could. I mean she's been lauded to the skies, so expectations are far too high. And it didn't wow me the way that her short story did. So my reactions are probably a bit skewed. But there is one major problem with it: I mean, please don't get me wrong, it's good, it's probably great, but there's something that doesn't sit right with me.
You see, basically it's the story of a family. And the way I read it, this family is representative. I mean it's very clearly flagged that Kweku has no business dying of a heart attack, not at his age, not with his healthy lifestyle, not as a doctor who surely must have read the signs and got help quickly. He's dying of a broken heart, not a medical condition. His heart has been broken by all the leavings he's done. So he stands for the cracked hollowness of a misplaced, displaced, dislocated existence. And this pain plays through to the next generation, his four children, each of them disturbed, damaged, in pain."
"Sounds bleak."
"It is. Oceans of tears. But that's not my problem. You see, apart from Kweku's wife, Fola, who remains very shadowy, these characters are lovingly painted, so much so that I began to connect with them as real people."
"Well, isn't that what novels do? Isn't that what you want, that emotional connection, that empathy?"
"Perhaps, yes. But not when the psychology doesn't add up."
"But you said you read it as a novel of ideas, that these are representative figures, not real people with a personal idiosyncratic psychology? So surely it shouldn't matter if their motivation sits oddly sometimes?"
"Yes, there's the rub. D'you think it's possible to do both at the same time? I mean she works hard to make sure that we don't relax into this novel and let it all wash over us like a warm bath, the action jumps around a lot in time and place, you're asked to stay on your toes, ready to switch and leap and dance, at least at the beginning until the family finally come together for the funeral. A cerebral pleasure rather than an emotional one. Which is fine. But it's a novel. You live with these characters for a week or so, they get under your skin. But as a real-life family it's all a bit much, too even a share-out of problems, one major one each, you know? Artificial. Can it be artificial and real at the same time?"
"As I said, you're too picky."
"Yeah, but you have to admire my determination."

[Rowena · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Then Ghana, and the smell of Ghana, a contradiction, a cracked clay pot: the smell of dryness, wetness, both, the damp earth and dry of dust. The airport. Bodies pushing, pulling, shouting, begging, touching, breathing. He’d forgotten the bodies. The proximity of bodies. In America the bodies were distant. The warmth of it"

Ghanaian doctor Kweku Sai loses his job in the US, abandons his Nigerian wife and his four children and moves back to Ghana. Years later, when Sai dies from a heart attack, his family, who have not been in regular contact in the previous several years, go back “home” to Ghana for the funeral. The rest of the story outlines what they had to deal with after their father left.

I found this book so tragic. The entire family was hurt in one way or another by Sai's abandonment, as their personal stories show. One scene in particular was truly awful and I had to skip over the majority.

Selasi is a wonderful writer and this is such a great debut. Her writing is very beautiful and lyrical, though there were some instances where I wasn’t sure who was speaking as the point of view changed so abruptly. Sometimes she interrupts her straight-forward prose with something like this:

“Taiwo pursed her lips to mute her revulsion, but what she felt next had no shape and no sound:

An odd emptiness, weightlessness, as if she were floating, as if for a moment she’d ceased to exist: some new odd sort of sadness, part grief, part compassion, a helium sadness, too airless to bear.”

I like the fact that Selasi wrote a story about the African diaspora. I think it’s still a relatively new concept in African literature. I read somewhere that Selasi coined the term “Afropolitan” to describe Africans in the diaspora, and I hope to see more Afropolitan literature in the future.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very impressive debut novel about a Nigerian/Ghanaian family who are fragmented when Kweku, the father, is wrongly dismissed from his post as a surgeon in a Massachusetts hospital. Too ashamed to admit his predicament to his family he abandons them and moves back to his native land. His loyal Nigerian wife Fola and their four children are left to piece together the mystery of his disappearance.

The novel begins with Kweku dying of a heart attack in his new Ghanaian home. To all intents and purposes he is dying of a broken heart. His death will reunite a family which has splintered as a result of his disappearance. There's lots of brilliant writing in this novel (some overwriting too); some clever plotting (some over elaboration too) and some impressive structuring. It offers plenty of insights into the challenges of migration, not least of all the stresses and strains of frequently having to adapt identity. I'll definitely be reading her next novel.

[Karen·]

This is how a reader gets the distinct feeling of being ripped off: when the publishers are obviously so keen to jump on the publicity bandwagon that they don't bother with a proof read at all. How else would you explain the mis-spelling of the main character's name in the blurb on the back? All through the novel his name is Kweku Sai, the blurb has him Kwaku.
Worse: page 79. "Until this very moment Kweku would have bet money that her younger son couldn't have said where he worked-not the name of the hospital, one of several in the vicinity, nor the location of the entrance hall-but here Kehinde was:" Kweku is the father of Kehinde, that's his son to my way of thinking.

A minor gripe I suppose.

I find it interesting to note how reviews and interviews, nay even her own website, all stress Ms Selasai's international background;'born in london raised in boston lives in new york new delhi rome'. For me it is obvious that her default mode is American. She helps the reader out when in Ghana. Accra is explained to us outsiders: Then hired a taxi to take him to Jamestown-the oldest part of Accra and the smelliest by far, a fetid seaside slum of corrugated tin-and-cardboard shanties in the shadow of the country's former Presidential Palace-where, braving the stink (re-dried sweat, rotting fish), he inquired in rusty Ga about a carpenter. But no such help is given when we are in the US. Brookline. (Mis-spelling for Brooklyn? Ooops, no) This was the Colonial she hated, in Brookline, which the man had bought proudly after Sadie was born (and though Mom had wanted a townhouse, South End...
There's noo need to explain. No? No.

Not a gripe, just saying.

And actually, I didn't like the language. It's described as glittering and poetic and all that, but mostly I found it jerky, spiky, prickly, bucking along like a square wheeled wagon. The cadences all the same, sentences running on, with piled up short phrases, separated by commas, and then, tripping, stumbling, (and often interrupted by parentheses) (ones that serve to confuse) (but also to add in layers) a couple of choppy sentences at the end. Without subject. Like this.
Which can be effective.
Sometimes.
But not all the time.
Sometimes you need a change of pace.

This book won't let me go will it?

The title: A 'Ghana Must Go' designates that ubiquitous light plastic carry-all bag that is used by immigrants all over the world. The name comes from the series of expulsions of mainly Ghanaian nationals from Nigeria especially in the 80s, when illegal immigrants were given no more than two weeks to pack up and leave, hastily packing their possessions into these cheap, lightweight bags.

In such a bag, Kweku's slippers are returned to Fola, his first wife:

"We did what we knew. It was what we knew. Leaving."
Was it?
"We were immigrants. Immigrants leave."

[Antonomasia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Philip Hensher encapsulated it in his Spectator review of the Granta Best Young British Novelists, of whom Selasi is one.

bog-standard products of the American creative-writing machine: present-tense narratives introducing western readers to exotic places, with a surface conventional lyricism and a glossary explaining how to pronounce Lagos.

Those who don't share this jaded, cynical sense of a generic litfic / creative writing course / MFA style may take more kindly to Ghana Must Go, a family saga that mixes Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith's On Beauty and a bit more Africa for good measure.

I'm not saying that there aren't some lovely metaphors and descriptions here, bits of alliterative wordplay I liked, moments that pull at the heart, occasionally with personal resonance - but it was easy to forget them when wading through paragraphs of that standard, over-serious "poetic" stuff. I found most of the scenes in West Africa more interesting, anything which provided a sense of a culture I don't know well, but chiefly this is an American book: another moderately fucked-up upscale intellectual family over a few decades. (One of today's favoured templates just as Austen's "three or four families in a country village" once was.)

It's possible to imagine being quite impressed with this book in a different context: "she was the best writer in our year" ... but set alongside the amount of hype it's received, nope. I think the hype simply shows how much attention you can get for your okay first novel if you went to Harvard AND Oxford AND have the right media-friendly personality and opinions AND have already worked in the industry. Looking like a supermodel rarely does any harm either.

The publishers could have done more with editing and to encourage rewriting. (To some, surely they would have said "this is promising, but come back to us with your next novel instead".) I don't require fast-paced books but in the first 200 pages Ghana Must Go actually became repetitive and tedious. Moments of Kweku's, the father's, death are slowed down like time-lapse photography and supplied every few pages between flashbacks to various parts of his past life and his family's; then in Part II the same happens with the moments people find out he has died. Described this way I like the approach, but as it is in the book, it doesn't work very well; it's too drawn out and even sometimes disorganised. It's a structure perhaps better suited to film - Selasi has also worked in TV and screenwriting.

The characters, as they each first appear, have believable essences that make them seem somehow more real than the book, Kweku being the best drawn. But as the story wears on there are a lot of details and responses that don't fit together psychologically, that feel like the work of a writer who's either very young and sheltered or isn't a briliant observer of a really wide range of people and also doesn't know much psychology in depth, just taking bits and pieces from the media. Many of the best writers, including those from hundreds of years before anything specifically about psychology was written down, can transmit a sense of three-dimensional people who possess attachment styles and schemas of relating and reacting based on their experiences, show clearly how these were formed in their early lives and how they were affected later. Selasi's characters aren't entirely without psychological depth, it's more that there are collage-like instances of "that happened to them therefore they do this" - but often without setting it in the wider context of the person's earlier experiences and therefore certain things just do not compute. And as this is not a great novel, and also a first novel from someone with what appears to be a very privileged background ... this might be a cheap shot... the inclusion of a particular serious issue that's quite common in recent fiction, films etc seems somewhat exploitative. By which I mean the abusive uncle and the forced incest. There's such an awful lot of this sort of thing in fiction currently that it does start to seem tacky and exploitative unless the writer honestly needs to include it for personal reasons. (Or unless it's the sort of pulp in which you don't expect any better.) However, we shouldn't expect authors to make personal disclosures about traumatic experiences unless they want to anyway.

Perhaps Selasi won't change her modern international family saga subject matter or her writing style a great deal, but I'm sure she'll polish the latter somewhat. Her next book (it's not like there isn't going to be one, is it?) will surely be better - though it probably won't be quite my sort of thing, so I won't read it unless I'm repeating this present game of reading stuff (likely to be) nominated for awards. And in any case - like Franzen - she's still interesting as a pundit regardless of the novels.

[Maria Yankulova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Съжалявам, че цяла година тази прекрасна книга отлежава на рафта и постоянно бе измествана от други, които купувах и почвах на мига, защото е повече от прекрасна, бих казала великолепна.
Писането на Селаси е красиво и поетично. Първоначално бях объркана от разхвърляните фрагментирани случки, но след 50-80 страница повествованието ме повлече, “пропаднах” в историята и вече не можех да спра. Книгата поставя много въпроси и предизвика много размисли в мен, но най-силно сякаш ме докосна тази за родителството и братско - сестринските отношения.

[Chad Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

About 10 years ago, I spent 3-4 months teaching English in a tiny Ghanaian village (electricity only in two or three houses, no running water) in the heart of the Ashanti region. I realize that a) this does not make me an expert on Ghana, and b) is not a particularly unique experience; however, it does mean that I have a very soft spot in my heart for Ghana. After reading the blurb on this, and reading about the author's backstory after seeing her short story in last year's Best American, I was excited to dig into this one.

Honestly, I finished it a few days ago, and I've been struggling with what I thought about it. For about the first 50 pages, I vacillated a lot in my opinion of Selasi's writing - stylistically speaking. It's very impressionistic, very poetic, and has a lot of beautiful sentences, but I also thought she had quite a few annoying tics (the one word paragraph, the redundant proliferation of several phrases to describe one thing when one would do just as nicely, etc.) and that it was in need of an editor by about half. Also, for a novel that is primarily about how a family breaks apart over time (and their struggles to come back together), and in which very little in the present time actually happens, I thought some of the backstory seemed a little farfetched and overly melodramatic (especially the storyline with the twins- not that it couldn't happen, but couldn't something a little less over the top have happened to drive them apart?). The sensational nature of what happened to the twins made it difficult for me to stay with them as real characters rather than caricatures, moreso than I did with the moments between Sadie and Fola, Kehinde and Kweku, or Olu and all of them.

But - and it's a big one - I'm giving it four stars. Because my two most important reading criteria are: 1) I feel genuinely moved by the time I finish a piece, and 2) it stays with me after I close the book. It might be a little early to tell for #2, but I haven't stopped thinking it over since I finished it. And as for the 1st one, I will say that Selasi has a tremendous ability (despite the narrative tics that got to me here and there) to render very real, very nuanced characters. She is great with details, with dialogue, and with pacing, and very subtly handled what was a rather complicated chronological approach in this novel. By the time I finished the book, I cared very, very deeply about the Sai family, and hoped for the best for them, despite their faults. I'll be excited to read whatever Selasi puts out next, but for now I'm glad she's been getting a lot of attention for this one.

[Zanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not you, Taiye, it's me.

I don't know why I feel like none of the characters have enough of a personality to seem human, despite being well stocked with anguished personal histories and appropriate mixes of generic and unique traits (except Olu's Asian American wife Ling, who seems particularly ill-served. Her politely racist father, direct from central casting, is at least spared the indignity of being thought 'cute') But perhaps the viewpoint-shifting and relentless interiority sets the bar impossibly high. With all these deepest darkest hearts on display, Selasi is up against the problem... of only having one heart?

But it's me, it's my fault. When Sadie flares up at her mother I'm disgusted and confused; Selasi's explanation of her resentment adds up, but it doesn't feel right to me. Fola, the mother, is adorable (morally faultless), her thoughts poetically rendered, but still seems to sleepwalk. Kweku, the father, gifted with the most story-space to express himself, is generally similarly somnolent. The elder son Olu, for all his inept emoting, lacks substance. Taiwo and Kehinde, damaged, knitted into each other, are the only characters that seem to really live.

It's also mostly my fault that I struggled with what felt like gender-normativity, mostly. Take Ama, Kweku's second wife, described by Olu as a 'village idiot' and by the magic yogi carpenter character as 'used to being told what to do', by Kweku as 'capable of being satisfied' and also, conclusively, as 'a genius'. Selasi thus makes the case for her, through Kweku and later Fola, as unfairly judged, but crucially doesn't give her a voice: she has no right of reply, no subject position. Maybe it's a good tactic though to make the reader do the work?

I could really have done without the enormous excess of physical descriptions (especially the constant judgemental equivocal adjectives like beautiful and pretty) and I would have been much happier to do without any of the sex scenes. My fault. And the abuse... I always wish these scenes were offstage.

It's my fault that I wanted a different book when this one was perfectly good. People and relationships are mashed up, injured by institutional racism and racism-induced inferiority complexes (I ineptly fill in the gaps as to why Fola, perhaps because she is African, seemingly hasn't prepared her children well to cope with anti-blackness in America). Poverty happens with consequences, but lacks its taste. In general the Sais move freely through the world unhindered by monetary obstacles. Staff near-silently assist them. There is nuance, but the people change painfully, while the structures that hurt them slumber in place. There is sense of place, aesthetic; not political, not communal.

Honestly it's well constructed and beautifully written and all. And I enjoyed reading it, on the whole. I just couldn't fall in love.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much as I resisted it to start with, I ended up loving this beautiful novel about a complex African-American family full of secrets, estrangements, and shifting alliances. Despite their disparate settings, the storyline reminded me most of Maggie O’Farrell’s Instructions for a Heatwave.

With its wise commentary on race and class in America, it also brought to mind one of my absolute favorites, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, whom I think Selasi is destined to join in the top rank of contemporary authors. I particularly loved this aside on what it means to be black: “authentic blackness…as far as [Sadie]’s concerned, confuses identity and musical preference.”

So now back to explain why I struggled through the first 60 or so pages, thinking I was aiming at a two-star review. The writing takes some getting used to. Here’s an example of Selasi’s short and often incomplete sentences:

“An hour outside of the city: the ocean.
Unannounced, unambitious.
Just suddenly there.”

Along with that somewhat clipped phrasing, you’ll also have to become accustomed to some repetition and cyclical chronology: it takes about 70 pages for a central character to die, despite the fact that the very first sentence announces the death. The event is also mythologized in a way that highly irritated me to start with. “Who does she think she is? Salman Rushdie?!” I kept grumbling to myself, especially after a few minor hints of magic realism (heartbreak described literally; the mother sensing which one of her children is in trouble based on which quadrant of her belly twinges). The persistent wordplay, including rogue capitalization and hyphenation, also felt a bit too clever. I kept thinking that, although impressive, the book was overwritten.

Here’s the thing, though: Selasi is so talented she completely gets away with all of it. She has the confidence to expand the few days between a death and a funeral into a decades-long family saga, rife with betrayal and shame. She brazenly reverses a saying through sections headed “Gone” --> “Going” --> “Go.” She keeps piling on the big shockers – a secret marriage, a murder, eating disorders, wrongful dismissal from work, affairs, divorce, and incest/sexual abuse – without once resorting to melodrama. She even has the audacity to continue presenting characters’ behavior through the viewfinder of an imaginary cameraman (now that I loved). And she immerses you completely in her settings, whether the backseat of a New York taxi, the dusty streets of Ghana and Nigeria, or a dorm bathroom.

Although I probably prefer Zadie Smith’s writing on balance, I’ll be eager to see what Selasi comes out with next.

[Margarita Garova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Красиво, интровертно, леко задушаващо четиво, много плътно писане, някои пасажи бяха просто брилянтни, много интимна, камерна и меланхолична история.

[João Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Kweku morre descalço num domingo antes do nascer do Sol, com os chinelos no chão, junto à entrada da porta do quarto, como dois cães. Neste preciso momento está a meio caminho entre a sala envidraçada e o jardim a pensar se há de voltar atrás para os ir buscar. Não vai voltar.”
Estas são as primeiras linhas de ”A Beleza das Coisas Frágeis” (2013) – romance estreia da escritora Taiye Selasi (n. 1979), nascida em Londres, Inglaterra, criada no Massachusetts, EUA; vive actualmente em Roma, Itália. A sua mãe nasceu em Inglaterra, foi criada na Nigéria e vive actualmente no Gana. O seu pai nasceu na zona da Costa do Ouro, antes uma colónia britânica, hoje o Gana, e viveu mais de trinta anos na Arábia Saudita.
”Ghana Must Go” é o título original – associado a um período nos anos 80 em que a Nigéria impôs a expulsão de todos os imigrantes indocumentados, numa medida que afectou principalmente os cidadãos ganases.
Kweku Sai, um brilhante cirurgião ganês que emigrou para os Estados Unidos da América e a sua primeira mulher Folásadé Savage (Folá), que abandonou Lagos, na Nigéria e partiu para a Pensilvânia são a génese do romance construído por Taiye Telasi com recurso às memórias e às lembranças das personagens – quer no passado, quer no presente; incluindo as dos seus quatro filhos.
No final há um reencontro – não um desfecho – familiar, desdobrando-se esta história em múltiplos fragmentos em múltiplas histórias, com inúmeras revelações, quase sempre dramáticas, que permitem termos a percepção das motivações, da perspicácia, da inteligência e da tenacidade de todos os intervenientes.
”A Beleza das Coisas Frágeis” é um notável romance de estreia de Taiye Selasi com uma escrita ousada e poética, num relato profundo e emocional sobre pessoas que sofrem inúmeras transformações físicas e psicológicas, consequência de vivências assentes em vínculos e laços de amor, mas, igualmente, em relações infligidas pela dor e pela incompreensão.
”A Beleza das Coisas Frágeis” é igualmente uma obra que debate a questão primordial da ausência de raízes sociológicas nas gerações de imigrantes provenientes de África e que se instalaram nos Estados Unidos da América.
”A Beleza das Coisas Frágeis” não é um livro de leitura fácil. Ambicioso no contexto e diversificado na vertente geográfica – Gana, Nigéria, Estados Unidos da América; reúne uma história comovente de uma família fragmentada, resgatando maravilhosamente a resolução dos segredos e das mentiras do passado.
Apesar de não se debruçar excessivamente no sofrimento das personagens, preferindo antes particularizar a experiência da imigração africana, Taiye Selasi, enquadra questões dolorosas como o abuso sexual na infância, a bulimia e a neglicência parental; indagando sobre a descriminação social e económica, sobre as conquistas e os fracassos, sobre as questões raciais, o preto e o branco, o preto e o negro.
Há sempre a possibilidade de um recomeço…

Nota: A edição portuguesa apresenta o título ”A Beleza das Coisas Frágeis” - não o consigo associar com a obra literária.


Taiye Selasi (n. 1979)


https://www.ted.com/talks/taiye_selas...

Taiye Selasi na TED

[Melanie Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://dakimel.blogspot.com/2013/04/p...

You guys. I literally - like, actually, physically, inexplicably - had to stop myself from taking a bite of this book. My desire to devour it, to internalize it and at the same time, to curl up in it and be surrounded by it, was that strong.

So, Kweku, the father of four, brilliant surgeon, loving husband, and then - none of those things, abandoning the roles without actually leaving them behind in his heart. Sixteen years after he left Boston and his family behind, he dies suddenly, leaving his ex-wife and children with too many things unsaid. They have continents of mis- and non-communication within them, for a group that started out so solidly as a nuclear family - but Kweku's leaving burned deep scars into them all.

But, whatever. A plot device - this long-delayed bringing back together of once-close family members, complete with sad revelations and falling into old patterns and tears (and tears) and joinings. It's good stuff, undoubtedly, and Selasi balances each of the five survivors with delicacy, weaving their stories just tightly enough to hold while still seeing their individual, lovely shades.

The magic is in the writing. Follow the ways color-attuned and monochromatic sensibilities speak about each character. Delve into the truths about identity and self-perception and heritage. Admire the use of dialogue and the silences within dialogue. See the emotions transparent in the empathic guts of the Sai family. Discover the terrifying beauty of Selasi's writing, and after you've read it and re-read it, come back and tell me how damn right I am.

(But if it's a library book, don't actually chew on the novel. It's bad form.)

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started out slow, ended too soon. An immigrant family rooted in achievement, breaks. The journey in these novel chronicles the impacts on the parents and their four driven and successful children. All characters fully developed with the weight of the expectations, secrets, emotional baggage and ignored issues. I got pulled in completely by these interesting and engaging characters. Excellent debut novel. The title refers to a time in 1983 when Nigeria expelled Ghanaians with the all too familiar "they are taking our jobs..." meme. Though this bit of history is not a huge part of the novel, the burdens on immigrants to be brilliant in other countries and what happens when they prove to be human is palpable. Trigger warnings: abandonment, suicidal thoughts, forced sexual trauma, incest, racism This novel had a worldly feel both with the characterization and the various locales in the story. I will be thinking about this immersive novel for a long time.

4.5ish Stars

Listened to the audiobook. The narration by Adjoa Andoh was fantastic!!

[NeDa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Книгата губи от това, че е обсипана само с хвалебствия по кориците и представена с откъс, който по-скоро озадачава, отколкото да привлече.
"Ghana must go" дава информация и насока. При такава промяна в заглавие, една кратка анотация би помогнала повече.
Много емоционален и хубав разказ за семейство, емиграция, корени, близост, чудесно овладяна промяна на гласове и гледни точки, запомнящи се лица.
Чудех се как Селаси може така да влезе в психологията на отношения между близнаци, последните думи от благодарностите обясниха всичко: "и най-вече д-р Йетса Кехинде Адебодунде Олубунми Туакли-Уосорну, моя близначка и мое сърце."

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had difficulty following her writing style. Each time I started to read, it took me at least 30 minutes to get into her rhythm. It's a story about a man from Ghana who marries a woman from Lagos. He pursues his medical degree, and she puts her Law school on hold to have a baby. They have 4 children, his wife stays home, and he tries to be the best Dr. It's a story of estrangement and secrets that families have. The Dr abandons the family when he is faced with the humiliation of being fired (unjustly). He comes back a week later and the wife took the children and began a new life. He moves back to Ghana and dies an early death. The family gathers to bury him and secrets unfold, family members are more understood, the family knits back together. Interesting story…..I just didn't like her writing style.

[jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

what i liked most in this book, what kept me electrified from the first sentence, is the language. i loved the language. wow. poetic passages with not a shred of tiresomeness. originality of vision. beautiful.

in the last third, the story got in the way. truth be told, i was all about kweku. his tragedy, told almost indirectly, through his kids' stories, through the flashbacks he's having as he's dying, is powerful and delicate and so poignant. a brilliant man, an accomplished man, an african living in america: you know he doesn't stand a chance. you know the land of opportunity will chew him and spit him out.

the twins' story robs the limelight in a way that is not to advantage, in my opinion. maybe it belonged in another book?

but i read it breathlessly till the end, and if you like language half as much as i do, read this extraordinary book as well.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 3 out of 5]

[3.45] Beautifully written with characters I wanted to get to know, this was almost a 4 star novel for me but the pacing and structure was just too uneven. As soon as I got involved, I was jerked back to the past or to another family member and had to figure out where I was again.

[Chidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this novel was used in a word association game, my first words would be Zadie Smith's WHITE TEETH. Both debut novels exhibit raw talent and beauty. Both women handle serious topics such as race, class, gender, ambition, social status with tremendous ease. Both novels, however, are incredibly overwritten, dripping with prose that should have been left on the cutting room floor. I'm thinking here of the description of Kweku's death and how Selasi goes in super slo-mo to describe every detail of our patriarch's fall. Beautiful, beautiful stuff but perhaps we don't need all of it. Selasi, like Smith, will settle down as a writer, and I can't wait to read more from her.

I'm thinking now of something Selasi writes towards the end of the novel. She says relationships forces us to look at our own mortality. Essentially, the arch of our life is mimicked by the arch of our love. The exciting beginning. The somber end. And the habits in between. I'm guessing this is why people find both joy and struggle in relationships because of how it amplifies the rising and falling action of the business of life. I'm also thinking this is why there are so many 6-months-and-quit relationships. No one wants to come face to face with the monotony of their life, especially within the construct of love, a construct most of us only understand through saccharine love songs and movies. There are few movies or songs about walking the dog, paying bills, going grocery shopping, etc.

(Ironically enough, my girlfriend is telling me I should quit this and follow her to bed. So I will end here. )

oh.

there is also the nagging question of: what is the title really about?

it is been hardwired for most africans that to achieve success, one must leave. i suppose this is the common narrative for all humans...

but i don't think as extreme as africans. to get a quality education, you must leave your CONTINENT. at least that is the conventional wisdom. it is definitely the thought with my parents who immigrated here looking for the pot of gold (gold= stability, kids who spoke perfect English with no Igbo accent). the problem with that is that africans have learned that the best thing to do in tough times is to exit. ghanians are seen as a threat..so they must exit. within this model can there ever be compromise? can there ever be real love?

[Dessislava · Rating 4 out of 5]

Напускането на света на един отдавна напуснал семейството си баща е повод напуснатите да се съберат отново.
Брилянтно написан роман за разпада и опита за събиране на едно семейство. Книга с ритъм, пулс. Жива книга, с усет към детайлите, със силно психологическа обосновка за същността на всеки от персонажите.
Безкрайно емоционална история, поне за мен.

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely terrific. A stunning debut. This is a family tale, told with such realism the prose just sings off the page. She describes one character thusly, "Ama isn't a fighter. She comes to breakfast without weapons and to bed in the evening undressed and unarmed." Damn! This is the kind of writing you will be treated to when you read this novel. The story evolves in a circular manner, which keeps things tense and exciting.

The novel opens with the death of Kweku Sai, a father, husband and renowned surgeon. We learn of this man's life and his children through looking back, but not in a linear way, but in a orbitual way, with the prose always shining. Kweku and his first wife have four children, who are given complexity and depth by Ms. Selasi's brilliant writing. Kweku has struggled hard to reach the heights of his profession, hailing from Ghana, to succeed in America, the often untold immigrant story, vividly on display here. His dutiful and beautiful wife Fola has borne him four children and has been a loyal partner. The family suddenly unravels due to a very unfortunate event. Or rather Kweku's response to this event. The domino effects of Kweku's decision will affect wife and children.

The fallout is quite disruptive and leads to a splintering of the family. The author skillfully weaves the differing perspectives of how this situation has impacted wife and children, over a number of years and numerous places. The children's stories are captivating and unforgettable, leaving an impression long after you've finished the book. Essentially, the novel seeks to answer the question of how does a family repair and recover, is it even possible? Was family ever a reality?

I think the book description sums it up best, "What is revealed in their coming together is the story of how they came apart..."

This is simply a great book, I guarantee you will find this novel on many top ten novel lists. Trust me!

[Arwen56 · Rating 3 out of 5]

La bellezza delle cose fragili è un romanzo scritto bene e che si legge con piacere, ma che non mantiene del tutto né le sue promesse, né le sue premesse.

L’autrice, Taiye Selasi, chiede ai suoi lettori di condividere la storia di una famiglia che si disgrega, si spezza e si perde, a partire dal giorno in cui Kweku Sai decide di abbandonare sua moglie e i suoi quattro figli. Lo fa in un impulso del momento, ma non lo fa per capriccio. Lo fa perché si sente un uomo spezzato, vinto, giocato dall’imprevedibilità della vita e talmente sopraffatto dalle circostanze da non riuscire a credere che le persone che ama avrebbero compreso il suo stato d’animo.

In un certo senso, sì, quella di Kweku è una fuga e un atto di codardia. Ma anche la sua famiglia reagisce allo stesso modo. In particolare Fola, la moglie, che a sua volta scappa, generando una reazione a catena, che si arresterà solo molti anni dopo, quando il dolore avrà lasciato un segno pesante su tutti.

La prima parte è davvero bella, intensa, piena e riuscitissima. Nella seconda parte, la narrazione si fa più irrisolta e ingiustificata, pur restando, in linea di massima, a un buon livello. E nella terza parte fanno capolino alcuni episodi di scarsa efficacia narrativa, che inficiano un po’ l’insieme.

Come romanzo d’esordio è sicuramente più che notevole. Ma il cerchio non si chiude del tutto. E lo si sente.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Come si misurava il successo (in dollari? in base al numero dei diplomi incorniciati?) e quand’è che raggiungeva un livello sufficiente?”

Kweku, abile chirurgo, è tornato in Ghana dove una mattina, inaspettatamente, la morte lo attende. Lo stimato medico, nonostante tutto il suo sapere non riesce ad intervenire a quelli che sono evidenti sintomi di un infarto.
E' troppo distratto.
Troppo impegnato a ricordare.

”Lo sa – mentre se ne sta fermo lí con addosso la canottiera e i pantaloni alla MC Hammer, appoggiato con la spalla alla porta scorrevole, aperta per metà, scivolando sempre piú nelle sue riflessioni, nei suoi ricordi e in altre cose che cominciano con ri- (rimpianto, rimorso, risentimento, rivalutazione) – che sta morendo.
Lui lo sa.
Ma non ci fa caso.
Si tratta di conoscenza e non di cognizione. Un pensiero che si confonde fra gli altri. E che non si può nemmeno chiamare «pensiero». Un rumore che viaggia nell’acqua e gli arriva attutito, rallentato. Un’immagine che prende forma in lontananza, uscendo fuori dallo spazio vuoto che la circonda. Una bolla che comincia piano piano a salire verso la coscienza, ma a dieci, quindici minuti di distanza dalla consapevolezza, in ritardo sulla tabella di marcia, mentre intanto tutti i fatti vengono sistemati in posizione verticale e gli assistenti di volo preparano la cabina per l’atterraggio. Una donna. La voce di una donna. L’amore di una donna. L’amore per lei, l’amore che viene da lei, una donna, due donne. La madre e l’amata, dove tutto inizia e tutto finisce, come aveva sempre sospettato. (Ma torneremo su questo a breve).
E intanto lui è fermo sulla soglia, ammaliato dal giardino.
Come ha fatto a sfuggirgli tutto questo?”

Dagli ultimi respiri di Kweku si dipana la storia della famiglia San.
Lui ghanese.
Fola, la moglie nigeriana:

”Folá Sadé Savage in fuga da una guerra. Kweku Sai in fuga da una pace in grado di uccidere. Due barche alla deriva, che infine spinte dalle correnti arrivano in Pennsylvania («Pennsyl-comesichiama») fra tutti i posti possibili, a morire di freddo, vivi, innamorati. Orfani, fuggiaschi, a piede libero nella storia del mondo, entrambi provenienti da paesi che avevano visto la loro ultima gloria nel diciottesimo secolo – ma orgogliosi (pieni di coraggio e di speranza), straripanti e senza un soldo.”

La storia è quella che potrebbe essere di tanti africani che si ritrovano a studiare e a diventare professionisti nelle grandi città occidentali. Spezzati, divisi nella loro identità cercano un'affermazione di successo che li conforti, che li ripaghi e risarcisca delle polvere del passato.
Kweku lo vuole e lo pretende da se stesso e dai suoi figli. I fallimenti non sono previsti e quando accadono fanno precipitare tutto.

Questa è la storia di una famiglia che si sfalda.
Unioni che si slegano.

Due genitori e quattro figli che formavano un'unità (”Una Famiglia di Successo, uno sforzo in cui tutti e sei erano impegnati, tutti, che si battevano per l’obiettivo comune, ancora non raggiunto. “) diventano sei esistenze chiuse nella propria solitudine.

“Ghana must go” è il titolo originale che ripete lo slogan che negli anni '80 accompagnava le deportazioni dei ghanesi dalla Nigeria.
Il richiamo è a quelle esistenze che cercano una collocazione ed intanto si muovono tra geografie e culture differenti.
In italiano il titolo è correlato alla fotografia come spiega la Selasi (che è per l'appunto anche fotografa)in un'intervista:

« Da bambina io e mia sorella eravamo spesso in viaggio.
Mia nonna viveva in Spagna, il mio patrigno in Svizzera dove passavo molto tempo. Durante i voli, nelle attese, ma anche durante le gite, ero sempre con la testa fra le pagine di un libro, al di fuori della realtà. Un giorno mia madre, preoccupata, mi sgridò e io cominciai ad alzare il naso e guardarmi intorno, solo lo feci attraverso una lente, quella della macchina fotografica. Volevo fermare la bellezza nelle cose, nella natura, nelle persone.
Sono attenta ai particolari, all'istante, come ora la luce che cade sul tuo braccio e illumina i cerchi d'oro che ti adornano il braccio».

In un articolo (“Bye Bye Barbar”) l'autrice ha coniato il termine “Afropolitan” dicendo:

«Siamo Afropolitan. Non cittadini ma africani del mondo» e riferendosi così a chi come lei ha condotto e conduce una vita tra le maggiori città occidentali e l'Africa.

“La bellezza delle cose fragili” è il felice esordio di Taiye Selasi che racconta una storia afropolitan (e lo fa molto bene!) sia per le dinamiche transnazionali dei suoi protagonisti sia per le modalità narrative.
Il malessere disturbante delle relazioni famigliari, tema caro al romanzo americano (difficile non pensare a Franzen ed a "Le correzioni") varca le frontiere...

[Mmars · Rating 5 out of 5]

So often this book read like a long prose poem. This paragraph tells of Olu, the eldest son who has followed in his father's footsteps and become a doctor, sitting in his obsessively white New York bedroom after just learning that his long absent father has died at the age of 57 in Ghana.

"He sits in his scrubs with the shirt in the dark, with the moon making ice of the floor and the walls, and thinks maybe she's right, all this white is oppressive, apathetic; a bedroom shouldn't be an OR. In the sunlight it's gorgeous, hard angles and harder the light crashing billiantly against its own shade, to an eerie effect, white on white, like an echo, the sun staring at its reflection. Not now. Now it is lonely and cold in the darkness, a cold and dark light. With the snow falling onto itself out the window as noiseless as hopelessness, more white on white. "

Personally, I was carried away with the writing style of Taiye Selasi. More than once I needed to reread a passage to further understand what was just said, or to bathe in the beauty of her word choice. At times, and other reviewers also mention this, new passages do not clearly reveal the narrator, but considering this is a first novel and that Selasi has such a unique writing style, I was able to look at this less as a fault and more as an adjustment I needed make as I read.

Each narrator is unique, not in voice but in how they relate to their family and society. They have all been traumatized, as it turns out, not only by their father's leaving (going) the family, but by their places in society and how they do not fit in. This is all revealed as the book goes along. They go along in life, and come to make of it as they do. The words go, going, gone, come, etc. appear very often throughout the book. But I remember only once seeing the word "am". They are unable to function in a normal (present) matter. The whole family does not belong - they are immigrants in a class between. Below their professional peers. It is also the singling out/scapegoating of their father, pressured to do a failed surgery that should never have been performed, that is his undoing. And, the family's undoing. He is forced to "go".

This was a very painful book for me to read. I cried often while I read it. But I would read it again. I fine piece of world literature. An author to watch. Book clubs that do not shy away from difficult subjects should consider this.

[Kai Spellmeier · Rating 4 out of 5]

“They were doers and thinkers and lovers and seekers and givers, but dreamers, most dangerously of all.
They were dreamer-women.
Very dangerous women.”

What a surprising, enchanting, confusing book. Through highs and lows, birth to burial, we watch a family form and fall to pieces and come together again, disassembled but whole.

Ghana Must Go and high had a rough start. You cannot put commas, semicolons, colons and dashes in a single sentence and not expect me to hold my head in despair. The first couple of chapters had me considering to shut this book and never look at it again. And then, suddenly, it flowed. The dam was broken and I devoured the colourful prose and the lives it told.

I loved this short and multifaceted family saga, loved the characters, felt for them and hurt with them. It was an emotional read and I never wanted to shut this book again until that one scene that led me to take one star away from my final rating. I hated the depiction of child abuse in this book. Not only was it gruesome and detailed - I had to skip a page or two - it also came out of the blue an unnecessarily cruel. I got angry, as I didn't see the need for this cruelty. It was like a dark stain on this already tragic story. I don't want to deny that child abuse is a reality. But I also don't like to see it used as shock value and that's exactly how I perceived it..

Overall, a fascinating story with a fascinating narrative structure.

Find more of my books on Instagram

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Che cos'è la bellezza? E' l'Africa e le sue leggende, è una famiglia che si ritrova, che si riunisce dopo la scomparsa di uno dei suoi membri.
Taiye Selasi, con una scrittura moderna, ci guida con tatto e sensibilità, nel mondo della famiglia Sai, mostrandoci i mille modi in cui una famiglia può disgregarsi, spezzarsi e alla fine, essere insieme, uniti, ognuno con le proprie fragilità, le proprie insicurezze e il proprio senso di inadeguatezza.
La scrittrice lascia spazio a ognuno dei personaggi, che pagina dopo pagina, impariamo a conoscere, capire ed amare.
Elizabeth Gilbert ha detto che "Questo libro contiene il mondo intero" ed è vero. Qui c'è tutto: amore, affetto, vita, dolcezza, dolore, perdita, fragilità, bellezza. Una bellezza che appartiene al mondo, agli esseri umani e a chi ha il piacere di leggere queste pagine.

[Nicko D]

Прочетох половината, имах й голям мерак, защото е част от "Отвъд"; губя обаче какъвто и да интерес да я довърша. Селаси пише литературно, четивно, гладко, само че темпото и историята (в дълбокия й смисъл) ми се губят... Има брилянтни метафори в романа, но за мен е прекалено времеотнемащо да прочета 350 страници заради хубавите сравнения. Почти на всяка страница обаче може да се срещнат готини изречения.

"Тя спи като кокосов орех. Похърква сладко, като по ноти, и ще сънува захарни петлета и Чайковски".

Оформлението е отлично, двулицева гланц корица; но в това отношение Жанет 45 са винаги прецизни и перфектни.

[Stephen King · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a lot of short sentences. For dramatic effect. And a lot of people crying. Hugging their knees. Tears. Coursing down their cheeks. Inner pain. Families hurting.

Oh dear. Another reviewer summed this up quite well suggesting that the author is a typical product of US creative writing courses. Americanah is so much better as a narrative of African diaspora dynamics in the US and their struggles with identity

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ultimately, I grew weary of the repetitive storytelling that was still happening 100 pages in. The minute details of the man's death were hardly interesting the first time around.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gostei bastante deste livro, pela história e pela realidade abordada (a imigração africana nos EUA concretizada no trajeto de uma família ao longo de duas décadas), que parece refletir a vivência da autora. Taiye Selasi nasceu em Londres e cresceu nos EUA. A sua mãe nasceu em Inglaterra, cresceu na Nigéria e vive atualmente no Gana; o pai nasceu na Costa do Ouro, cresceu no Gana e viveu a maior parte da vida na Arábia Saudita.
Em relação à escrita senti-me um pouco dividida. Se, por um lado, apreciei a dinâmica criada pela narrativa fragmentada que traduz a fragmentação da própria família Sai, por outro, fiquei com a sensação de uma lacuna no trabalho de edição. O começo (que é desafiante até se conseguir encaixar as peças) entusiasmou-me, a meio senti-me algo enfadada por sentir que havia ali prosa desnecessária, e depois voltei a gostar muito no final.
Também não amei a tradução, começando pelo título que, pelo que "investiguei", foi copiado da tradução italiana. Embora a frase esteja presente no texto, não creio que reflita a obra (na verdade, soa-me um pouco a legenda de imagem fofa de Instagram) e quem escolheu este título não entendeu certamente a intenção subjacente ao título original. "Ghana Must Go" é uma mala de diáspora. É o nome dado na Nigéria aos sacos axadrezados que frequentemente acompanham os viajantes africanos e não só (nos EUA são conhecidos como "Chinatown bag" e no Gana como "saco nacional"). E este nome tem uma história: em 1983, na sequência de uma crise social e politica, o líder nigeriano Shehu Shagari deu ordem de expulsão a cerca de 2 milhões de imigrantes sem documentação regularizada, maioritariamente ganeses.


(Ghana-must-go-bags)

Genial. Ele ri. Ela ri, Porque é que te deixei?
«Eu também te deixei» Ela inala o cheiro de uma familiaridade esquecida. Pressiona as solas contra as suas faces, ligeiramente húmidas «Fizemos o que sabíamos fazer. Era só o que sabíamos fazer. Darmo-nos ao abandono.»
Foi isso?
«Éramos imigrantes. Os imigrantes são-no porque se foram embora de algum lado.»
A explicação não pode ser essa.
«Cobardes.»
Amávamo-nos.
«Amávamo-nos, mas sem perder essa condição».
Não podíamos ter aprendido? A não partir?