REFRAMING YAA GYASI’S TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM: READING THROUGH THE LENS OF INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA

Abstract

This article reframes Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom through the lens of intergenerational trauma, addressing a critical gap in scholarship that has largely emphasized the novel’s explorations of religion, science and immigrant identity. It foregrounds the structural transmission of ancestral wounds, particularly the psychological and cultural legacies of displacement, racism and loss that have received limited critical attention. Drawing on foundational theories of trauma, postmemory, and diasporic inheritance, the study examines how the Ghanaian American protagonist, Gifty, negotiates inherited suffering across familial and cultural lines. By situating the novel within contemporary African diaspora trauma narratives, the analysis moves beyond individual psychology to illuminate how migration, diasporic identity, the tension between science and faith and storytelling shape both memory and resilience. This reading repositions Transcendent Kingdom within postcolonial and trauma studiesdemonstrating how Gyasi expands the terrain of African diaspora literature by exposing the subtle yet enduring mechanisms of trauma inheritance in the twenty-first century.