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Book of the Week: Washington Black

• Washington Black by Esi Edugyan • Reviewed by Vanessa Colantonio, Coquitlam Public Library The novel Washington Black, which earned author Esi Edugyan her second Giller Prize late last year, is a coming-of-age story set in the mid-19th century.
book

• Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
• Reviewed by Vanessa Colantonio, Coquitlam Public Library

The novel Washington Black, which earned author Esi Edugyan her second Giller Prize late last year, is a coming-of-age story set in the mid-19th century.

Washington is a slave on a Barbados sugar plantation whose life is suddenly altered when he is implicated in a murder.

The plantation owner’s quirky brother, an inventor and slavery abolitionist, helps him escape and takes him on a round-the-world trip in a hot air balloon.

Their adventures bring them as far afield as Nova Scotia, the Arctic and North Africa. All the while, Washington is pursued by a murderous slave catcher.

Washington Black is a historical novel that borders on magic realism by featuring an ahead-of-its-time hot air balloon doing very long distance travel; and then there are the adventures in faraway lands.

Likely, the magic is as much through Washington’s eyes as much as it is through the readers’.

Find Washington Black at your local library.