Homegoing characters

Appears from the start

A Fante girl raised in the village of Fanteland by Cobbe Otcher and the harsh Baaba. Regarded as unlucky because of the fire that marked her birth, she grows into a sought-after young woman and is married to the British officer James Collins at Cape Coast Castle, unaware that her half sister is imprisoned below.

First appears in chapter 2

Effia's half sister, born among the Asante to Maame and the warrior known as Big Man. Esi grows up loved and secure, but warfare and the slave trade overturn her life. Captured in a raid, she is confined in Cape Coast Castle's women's dungeon before being sent across the Atlantic.

First appears in chapter 3

Effia and James Collins's mixed-race son. Educated in England and then returned to the Gold Coast, Quey is expected to extend his family's influence in the coastal slave trade. His intimate bond with his friend Cudjo conflicts with the political marriage and commercial duties arranged for him.

First appears in chapter 4

Esi's daughter, enslaved on an Alabama plantation and marked by scars from punishment. Called Ness, she protects an inner life the enslavers cannot fully reach. Her marriage to Sam and their love for their son Kojo give her a family worth risking everything to preserve.

First appears in chapter 5

Quey and Nana Yaa's son, heir to two powerful trading families. Expected to continue their business, James becomes disgusted by the violence beneath its wealth and seeks a way to abandon his name and obligations for a life with Akosua Mensah.

Also known as Jo Freeman

First appears in chapter 6

Ness and Sam's son, carried north from slavery as a small child and raised in Baltimore by Ma Aku. Known as Jo, he works as a ship caulker and lives as a free Black man with his wife Anna and their children, though the law leaves their family vulnerable to slave catchers.

First appears in chapter 7

James and Akosua's daughter, raised in a farming village where repeated crop failures delay the marriage and adult standing she wants. Her relationship with the married cocoa farmer Ohene Nyarko leads her away from home in search of fertility, prosperity, and a place for herself.

First appears in chapter 8

Kojo and Anna's son, born after Anna is abducted and separated from the father who searches for her. As an adult after emancipation, H is imprisoned on a false accusation and leased to an Alabama coal mine, where Black convicts labor under deadly conditions. His extraordinary strength and sense of solidarity make him important to the other miners.

Also known as Crazy Woman, Firewoman

First appears in chapter 9

Abena's daughter, raised by missionaries after her mother leaves her behind. Akua is haunted by dreams of a woman made of fire and by a family history the missionaries have taught her to reject. She marries Asamoah, but the visions intensify as war reaches their community.

First appears in chapter 10

H and Ethe's daughter, a gifted singer who leaves Alabama for Harlem with her light-skinned husband Robert. Willie hopes New York will offer a stage and a freer life, but racism, colorism, and Robert's ability to pass as white reshape their marriage and her ambitions.

First appears in chapter 11

Akua and Asamoah's surviving son, a teacher whose face bears a burn scar from the childhood fire that destroyed much of his family. Yaw teaches history under British colonial rule and urges his students to question who controls its telling, while anger and uncertainty keep him distant from his own past.

First appears in chapter 12

Willie's son, raised in Harlem and angered by racial injustice. Sonny works for the NAACP helping families displaced by segregation and housing discrimination, but frustration, family strain, and his relationship with the singer Amani pull him toward heroin.

First appears in chapter 13

Yaw and Esther's daughter, who divides her childhood between Ghana and Alabama. Marjorie feels out of place among Black American classmates who do not regard her as one of them and among people who see Ghana as more home to her than America. Poetry and visits to her grandmother Akua help her hold both worlds together.

First appears in chapter 14

Sonny's son and a graduate student at Stanford. Marcus wants to research the convict-leasing system that imprisoned his great-grandfather H, but every path through the archive opens into an even larger family history of slavery, migration, segregation, addiction, and survival. He meets Marjorie without knowing their ancestral connection.