Effia and Esi, two sisters on the Gold Coast of Ghana in the 18th century, who will never meet. Effia marries a British officer, who, along with Effia's Fante tribe, gains wealth and power through the slave trade. In contrast, Esi is captured as an Asante and sold into America. While Effia's descendants become victims or beneficiaries of the slave trade over the centuries, Esi's children and grandchildren struggle for survival: on the plantations of the Southern states, during the American Civil War, the Great Migration, in the coal mines of Alabama, and then, in the 20th century, in the jazz clubs and drug houses of Harlem. Does the latest generation finally have a chance to find a place in society that they can call home, where they are not regarded as second-class citizens? New York Times Bestseller.