Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she held a Dean’s Graduate Research Fellowship. She has emerged as a prominent voice in literature with her debut novel, Homegoing, published in 2016. At the young age of 26, Gyasi won the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction, the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" honors for 2016, and the American Book Award. She was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature in 2020. As of 2016, Gyasi lives in Berkeley, California.

Her work transcends cultural and national boundaries, making significant contributions to contemporary African-American and Ghanaian literature.