May: Transcendent Kingdom

Review by Katharina Kindsmüller

The Story

T © Penguin Random House South Africa ranscendent Kingdom is the story of Gifty and her family, who emigrated from Ghana to the USA, where each family member struggles with different problems.

Gifty’s brother, a competitive athlete, dies early from a heroin overdose after an injury. Their mother, who has long suffered from depression, is plunged into a deep abyss from grief for her son and not even her faith gives her any support.
Gifty, on the other hand, studies neuroscience in order to research addiction and depression and to scientifically trace her family’s fate.

The second novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi is a powerful and moving family story that combines themes such as racism, the conflict between religion and science, and mental health.

Central questions

How do we deal with grief and trauma? And how do we comfort those we love?

About the reviewer

Katharina Kindsmüller

Worked at the Goethe-Institut until recently.

Portraitfoto von Katharina Kindsmüller

More informationen

This review is the fifth in the Book of the Month series from the Goethe-Institut South Africa.
A new review by South Africans for South Africans will be published every month, please check regularly.
All books can be borrowed from our library.

All "Book of the Month" reviews

Here you find all reviews of the series Book of the Month. All books are available in Goethe-Institute library in Johannesburg.

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Mhudi by Sol Plaatje

Mhudi is a historical novel set in the 1800s that tells the story of an African woman living during a war between the Barolong people, Matebele people and the Boers. Mhudi’s tribe, the Barolong, is attacked one evening by the Matebele. Amid the screams, bloodshed, and destruction—Mhudi escapes.

© Sol Plaatjie © Sol Plaatjie
Torchbearers - Book of the Month October

The women of 1956 marched to the Union building in unison because the pass laws that were oppressive. These women, from all backgrounds and races were torchbearers to a poet, social and legal advocates. These women, who are as colorful as their backgrounds and professions, share something common: the need to be somebody.

© Wendy Maartens © Wendy Maartens
Maru - Book of the Month September

Maru is a story about a Masarwa woman, Margaret Cadmore, who was adopted and raised by a white woman during a time when the Masarwa people of Botswana were heavily discriminated against. Head writes “Masawra is the equivalent of ‘nigger’, a term of contempt which means, obliquely, a low filthy nation.”

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I Am a Girl from Africa - Book of the Month August

As a young girl, during a drought in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth collapsed under a tree as a result of hunger and starvation. She was weak and in and out of consciousness. Moments later, a woman that Elizabeth did not recognise, gave her a meal.

© Author: K. Sello Duiker | Pubulisers: Kwela Books © Author: K. Sello Duiker | Pubulisers: Kwela Books
The Quiet Violence of Dreams - Book of the Month July

Tshepo, a young student at Rhodes, has a difficult time keeping up with his own strange mind. He is absorbed in making sense of a traumatic past in a violent country and so when he finds himself at the Valkenberg mental facility it is perhaps not entirely due to “cannabis-induced psychosis”.

© Author: K. Sello Duiker | Pubulisers: Kwela Books © Author: K. Sello Duiker | Pubulisers: Kwela Books
Here Again Now - Book of the Month June

Carried by impeccable lyrical writing, the 2022 novel examines themes of queerness, grief, friendship, and family. Set in the United Kingdom with hints of Nigerian life, this enthralling book reads like capricious weather.

© Goethe-Institut © Goethe-Institut
Transcendent Kingdom - Book of the Month May

A book about racism, the tensions between emotional religion and rational science and mental health.

© Marcus Sporkmann | Penguin Random House South Africa © Marcus Sporkmann | Penguin Random House South Africa
Land Matters - Book of the Month April

“The book brings the reader up to speed with land's lengthy and complicated process. Assessed interventionist measures on their efficacies that mainly amounted to nought.”

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Thirteen Cents - Book of the Month March

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© New Africa Books | Goethe-Institut South Africa © New Africa Books | Goethe-Institut South Africa
The Good Nigerian - Book of the Month February

“It is all at the same time filled familiarity, warmth and danger, fear and opportunity – the myriad of contradictions that is Johannesburg, and South Africa itself.”

© Goethe Institut Johannesburg © Goethe Institut Johannesburg
The Second Verse - Book of the Month January

“This book is worth reading, [...] to get to know how people become what they become, and it is not always their own fault.”

Penguin Random House South Africa Penguin Random House South Africa