Washington Black
Esi Edugyan
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
<p><i><b>Esi Edugyan</b>&nbsp;relates the astonishing adventures of Washington Black, whose escape from the brutal cane plantations of Barbados was only the beginning.</i></p><p>In a Barbados sugar plantation, Washington Black, an 11-year-old field slave, is selected to be the personal servant of one of the new owners - the eccentric Christopher ‘Titch’ Wilde. Titch is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor - and abolitionist.&nbsp;He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Titch abandons everything to save him.&nbsp;They escape the island together, but Titch disappears and Washington must make his way alone, following his own path to freedom.</p><p>"<i>There are moments when the writing soars, when Washington’s experience of the natural world is rendered in a prose that openly, almost exultantly, strives to evoke beauty ... His prose can be vivid, sometimes fervid, but it can also be measured ... What Edugyan has done in&nbsp;<span>Washington Black</span>&nbsp;is to complicate the historical narrative by focusing on one unique and self-led figure.</i>"&nbsp; -&nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Colm Toibin, The New York Times Book Review</b><br></p><p><b>Esi Edugyan's</b>&nbsp;Washington Black was shortlisted for The Scotiabank Giller Prize 2018. Her previous novel, Half Blood Blues, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was nominated for the Booker Prize, the Governor-General’s Literary Award, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Prize, and the Orange Prize. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.</p>