Washington Black - by Esi Edugyan (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Patrick Crean Editions, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., Toronto, and subsequently published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 2018.

Book Synopsis

NOW A HULU ORIGINAL SERIES - MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST - ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - "A gripping historical narrative exploring both the bounds of slavery and what it means to be truly free." --Vanity Fair

Eleven-year-old George Washington Black--or Wash--a field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is initially terrified when he is chosen as the manservant of his master's brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning, and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human.

But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, they must abandon everything and flee together. Over the course of their travels, what brings Wash and Christopher together will tear them apart, propelling Wash ever farther across the globe in search of his true self. Spanning the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, London to Morocco, Washington Black is a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again.

Review Quotes

MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST - One of the Best Books of the Year: The Boston Globe ● The Washington Post ● Time ● Entertainment Weekly ● San Francisco Chronicle ● Financial Times ● Minneapolis Star Tribune ● NPR ● The Economist ● Bustle ● The Dallas Morning News ● Slate ● Kirkus Reviews

"Extraordinary. . . . Edugyan is a magical writer." --The Washington Post

"A daring work of empathy and imagination." --The New York Times Book Review

"Soaring. . . . Washington Black contains immense feeling." --Entertainment Weekly

"An inspiring story of freedom and self­discovery." --Time

"Enthralling." --The Boston Globe

"Sparkling . . . full of truths and startling marvels." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Powerful." --The Seattle Times

"Lush, exhilarating." --The New Yorker

"Edugyan has created a wonder of an adventure story, powered by the helium of fantasy, but also by the tender sensibility of its aspiring young hero." --NPR

"Washington Black's presence in these pages is fierce and unsettling." --Colm Toibin, The New York Times Book Review

"A gripping historical narrative exploring both the bounds of slavery and what it means to be truly free." --Vanity Fair

"Brutal, magical, urgent and exuberant." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Imaginative and dynamic. . . . With equal parts terror, adventure and humanity, Washington Black reads like a dream collaboration between Jules Verne and Colson Whitehead." --The Dallas Morning News

"Exuberant and spellbinding. . . . The novel is not only harrowing and poignant in its portrayal of the horrors of slavery on a Caribbean plantation but liberating, too, in its playful shattering of the usual tropes. The result is a book about freedom that's both heartbreaking and joyfully invigorating." --Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Wall Street Journal

"Masterful. . . . [A] wondrous book." --The Economist

"Edugyan's language is exquisite, and the life story of her titular slave . . . is a swashbuckling adventure." --Vulture

"Profoundly humane." --The Times (London)

"As harrowing a portrayal of slavery as Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, but also a globe-trotting, page-turning adventure story. A historical epic with much to say about the present-day world." --The Guardian

"A wildly imaginative exploration of what it means to be free." --Financial Times

"Elegant, nuanced. . . . Edugyan illustrates the complexity of identity and explores what defines us. Is it what surrounds us, such as family? Or is it what is inside us?" --The Christian Science Monitor

"A thoughtful, boldly imagined ripsnorter that broadens inventive possibilities for the antebellum novel." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

About the Author

ESI EDUGYAN is author of the novels The Second Life of Samuel Tyne and Half-Blood Blues, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Orange Prize. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.