Memory, Akan cosmology, and elementality in Yaa Gyasi’s "Homegoing"

This article examines the convergence of cultural memory, elemental ecocriticism, and Akan cosmology in Yaa Gyasi’s (2016) Homegoing, arguing that natural elements – particularly fire and water – function as active agents of memory, history, and spiritual continuity. Drawing on memory studies and elemental ecocriticism, the article explores how Gyasi’s debut novel conceptualizes memory as transgenerational, relational, and mediated through both human and non-human forces. Akan cosmology, in which elemental forces are deeply tied to cycles of return, spiritual agency, and embodied memory, also informs this reading. The article examines how fire and water operate as cosmological and mnemonic forces and how these elements actively shape emotional, bodily, and environmental experiences across generations. By tracing how memory endures in bodies, landscapes, and elemental flows, it situates Homegoing within broader postcolonial ecocritical efforts to reimagine ancestry as a continuum of environmental and spiritual significance.