Esi Edugyan
Esi Edugyan is a Canadian novelist of Ghanaian heritage. She is the author of The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, Half-Blood Blues, Washington Black, Dreaming of Elsewhere: Observations on Home, and Out of the Sun: Essays at the Crossroads of Race. Washington Black, a historical fiction novel tracing one boy's extraordinary journey from enslavement to self-determination, was shortlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and has since been adapted into a limited television series.
Ghana/ Canada
Born into slavery on a Barbados sugar plantation, eleven-year-old Washington "Wash" Black is chosen as a manservant by an eccentric abolitionist inventor who introduces him to a world of science, discovery, and possibility. But when a tragic murder forces them to flee, Wash embarks on an epic journey from the American coast to the frozen Arctic and beyond. Esi Edugyan’s acclaimed novel is a sweeping story of freedom, betrayal, and self-discovery in a divided world.