Transcendent Kingdom
Author | Gyasi, Yaa |
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Year | 2020 |
First published | 2020 |
Publisher | New York: Knopf |
Edition | 1st edition Hardback |
ISBN | 9780525658184 |
Keywords | neuroscience, female scientist, scientist main character, minority (race, disability), immigrant/emigrant scientist, USA or Canada, literary or mainstream |
Abstract
Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the
Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior
in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her
brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin
overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her
suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover
the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even
as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's
loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling
with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of
salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.
Transcendent
Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants
ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a
novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written,
emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to
Gyasi's phenomenal debut.
Publisher