They had a brilliant son, Nana, and after his birth Gifty's mother, seeking a better life for her child, relocated to Huntsville, Alabama where a cousin of hers was studying.

Shaken by his father's abandonment, Nana quit soccer, a sport which he had been proficient in, and in high school joined basketball.

After injuring his ankle in a low-stakes game Nana was prescribed opioids and quickly became addicted, seeking out heroin to allay his cravings.

After she tried to commit suicide Gifty is forced to seek help and is sent to Ghana while her mother recovers, staying with her maternal aunt and briefly reuniting with her estranged father.

[14] In 2015, in Guernica magazine,[20] Gyasi published a short story titled "Inscape," which features some of the characters in Transcendent Kingdom in somewhat different situations.