Washington Black: Esi Edugyan - Softcover

Review

"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 self-discovery." --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.