And to show how by being physically free, we think of that as being the end of slavery - well, he's not in chains, he's gotten away, he's physically free. What I really wanted to explore was his life post-slavery.

On moving past slavery in the plot of the novel A friend of mine said that we tend to think of slavery in terms of the loss of black bodies, but we don't really stop so much to think about the loss of potential of black greatness, of black genius. Part of what I was wanting to explore was this idea of, I guess, black genius as being something that obviously would have existed back then - that you would have people with great gifts - but that this is something that would have been snuffed out, very brutally and without much thought.

'And at least for me, as a writer, I really have no idea where my story is going at the outset of it.'īook Reviews 'Washington Black' Is A Soaring Tale Of Enslavement And Escape 'You know, you're starting a novel, you're really playing with character, and you're letting them interact, and you're seeing what comes of it,' Edugyan says. Soon, the boy is soon revealed to be an almost preternaturally talented illustrator, drawing plants and birds and soaking up knowledge he'd been denied as a slave.Įven the novelist, a black Canadian, says she didn't really plan for the story to turn out that way.

Yet the white Englishman takes Washington away with him and even teaches 'Wash' to read. 'Any true friendship between them is impossible because of the power imbalance – it's just too great,' Edugyan says in an interview. He's made into an assistant of a visiting white man, and they become friends. He seems likely to be worked to death in sugar cane fields - until he's carried away. It's the 1830s, and the narrator, a boy named George Washington Black, is enslaved on the British-controlled island of Barbados. How?Īt the beginning of Esi Edugyan's new book Washington Black, it seems the narrator is not going anywhere. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Washington Black Author Esi Edugyan

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan