Transcendent Kingdom Audiobook By Yaa Gyasi cover art

Transcendent Kingdom

A novel

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Transcendent Kingdom

By: Yaa Gyasi
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

New York Times Best Seller • A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick! • Finalist for the Women's Prize

Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.

Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief - a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.

©2020 Yaa Gyasi (P)2020 Random House Audio
African American Family Life Fiction Heartfelt
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK!
FINALIST FOR WOMEN'S FICTION PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Harper’s Bazaar ● NPR ● Good Housekeeping ● Glamour ● Book Riot ● Library JournalWashington Post ● Amazon ● Marie Claire ● Kirkus Reviews ● Vanity FairEntertainment WeeklyTown and Country ● Indigo ● BBC ● USA Today ● Parade ● Real Simple ● Apartment Therapy ● Refinery29

"Gyasi sometimes reminds me of other writers who’ve addressed the immigrant experience in America—Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyun Li in particular.... As in the work of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or the Ghanaian-American short-story writer Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, the African immigrants in this novel exist at a certain remove from American racism, victims but also outsiders, marveling at the peculiar blindnesses of the locals...brilliant... Transcendent Kingdom trades the blazing brilliance of Homegoing for another type of glory, more granular and difficult to name." —Nell Freudenberger, The New York Times Book Review

Featured Article: The Best Audiobooks to Help You Cope with Depression


Sometimes when the world feels like too much, it can be helpful to listen to an audiobook that explores similar feelings. Maybe you're looking for a first-person narrative about struggling with or recovering from depression, or maybe you just need a fiction title featuring characters with whom you can relate. Here are a few of the best books on depression—but before you dive in, please be aware that the subject matter might be triggering for some people.

What listeners say about Transcendent Kingdom

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,502
  • 4 Stars
    693
  • 3 Stars
    296
  • 2 Stars
    60
  • 1 Stars
    22
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,701
  • 4 Stars
    367
  • 3 Stars
    117
  • 2 Stars
    26
  • 1 Stars
    14
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,273
  • 4 Stars
    577
  • 3 Stars
    279
  • 2 Stars
    61
  • 1 Stars
    28

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent book

This was an excellent book! I highly recommend it to everyone. Simply beautiful and meaningful!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Story that keeps you reading

Love the book and felt that a lot of us with immigrant parents can relate. Beautiful story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved this book! Performance outstanding

I wonder how this book would have been had I been the reader. As I have found from listening to enough books on Audible, the narration can make or break book impact and even meaning. This reader was absolutely the best I have heard. She made these personalities come alive. Bravo. Applause!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Devastating beautifully written book

Loved this book. It’s is beautifully written story and about family, loss, addiction, religion, being and immigrant. I enjoyed the narrator as well. I highly recommend it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Bpok

loved this books, I'm surprised I didn't listen to it one sitting. The family dynamics felt so real.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Biographical, not scientific

Expecting a discussion of genetics and biochemical aspects of addiction, I was instead immersed in a biographical confession of personal loss. It was well written and well performed, but not what I anticipated.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Very good!

The story was heartbreaking but well worth listening to. I loved the reader too. The different voices she used for each character was great.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Yaa Gyasi did it again. I didn’t know what to expect from another book after being moved so much by Homegoing. Transcendent Kingdom did not disappoint. The characters are profoundly vulnerable. The narrative is deliberate and engaging. If you are looking for a faster paced drama, this book isn’t for you. This book is for those readers who mask their brokenness yet long to feel seen as whole people, including their darkness. Bahni Turpin performs the book well. I was sad to finish it. I will miss Gifty (sp?) and her people.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful

Beautiful writing and story telling . Honest and haunting . Highlights many untold aspects of the immigrant experience - I loved every moment

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Multi-sensory Experience

Perfect for the reader who wants to feel something while reading. The story is compelling and the characters are so well developed that it is impossible for a reader not to be "in their shoes."

This phenomenon is aided by the narration, which is skillfully done in a manner that captures many ages, accents and genders to facilitate the reader's conjuring of the characters.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful