Out of the Sun - (CBC Massey Lectures) by Esi Edugyan (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Now available in paperback, an insightful exploration and moving meditation on identity, art, and belonging from one of the most celebrated writers of the last decade.
What happens when we begin to consider stories at the margins, when we grant them centrality? How does that complicate our certainties about who we are, as individuals, as nations, as human beings? Through the lens of visual art, literature, film, and the author's lived experience, Out of the Sun examines Black histories in art, offering new perspectives to challenge us.
In this groundbreaking, reflective, and erudite book, two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner and internationally bestselling author Esi Edugyan illuminates myriad varieties of Black experience in global culture and history. Edugyan combines storytelling with analyses of contemporary events and her own personal story in this dazzling first major work of non-fiction.

Review Quotes

"Distinguished by its erudite yet unpretentious prose and probing viewpoints, this is an essential reckoning with how history is made." -- Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

"Out of the Sun is an artful patchwork quilt, constructed from existing scholarship in a number of fields and other sources. ... Each section of the book represents another moment in time, brimming with historical personages." -- Event Magazine

"To examine Blackness is to find that it is a mirage, a story that is always being written and rewritten at the same time. ... Facts will collide with fantasies, the past with the present. If Edugyan is sometimes chasing shadows across continents only to find that the destination eludes her, the journey, at least, proves worthwhile." -- Alberta Views