Homegoing

James Collins and Akosua Mensah’s daughter Abena is living in the village, and at 25 she is concerned she will never marry. Her father is called “Unlucky” by the villagers because his crops always fail, and she knows none of the men in her village want to “take a chance with Unlucky’s daughter” (133). Abena wonders if she has inherited her father’s curse or if “she herself was a curse” (133). She asks her father if she can visit Kumasi to see the city and “walk by the Asante King’s palace” (134). He refuses, slapping her face when she insults him by calling him a coward and a liar, which shocks her since he has never hit her. Despite her father’s mysterious origins, she can see the white in his skin and can hear his Fante accent. Abena is proud of her Asante origins, due in part to their success against the British, and she hopes to someday start a new life in Kumasi.

Abena’s mother explains that she and Old Man are not welcome in Kumasi, because she defied her parents to marry him, and he came all the way from Fanteland. She explains that James “was the son of a Big Man, the grandson of two very Big Men” but wanted to break free of that life (135).