Review of Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

TW: Overdose, Suicide.

It was the rhythm and grace of the narration by the protagonist, Gifty, that moved me when I started reading the transcendent kingdom.

Gifty is a woman trying to survive the grief of losing her brother to overdose while being the primary caretaker for her mother, who was trapped in depression with suicidal ideations.

“Ordinary is how I’d always thought of us, our foursome that had turned into a trio.”

— Gifty, at the point when her, Nana’s and their mother’s lives shifted away from the ordinary.

This is a brilliantly written book and what is most interesting is the intersection between science and christianity. As a child, Gifty had turned to christianity wide-eyed from the fear of eternal condemnation but while mourning the loss of her brother, shouldering the weight of a mother who had lost interest in living, and bearing the judgment against “people like her”, she knew that she had to find answers to the questions that plagued her. Gifty had turned to science, burying herself under countless experiments in her search for answers that she was sure might never satisfy her.

Through Gifty’s recount of her past with Nana, the black mamba and the chin chin man, we observe how tragic her life’s story has been as she has gone through abandonment, heartbreak and grief at a very young age.

I was sad and relieved to read the last sentence in the transcendent kingdom. It is a tragically beautiful book!

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