Press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Toronto; September 20, 2018)

Esi Edugyan’s new novel, Washington Black, has been shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Edugyan has also been longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, which she previously won for her novel, Half Blood Blues.

One of the most anticipated novels to come out this fall—and an instant national bestseller—Edugyan’s book was released by HarperCollins Canada’s Patrick Crean Editions on September 4th to widespread acclaim from publications such as The New York Times, Seattle Times, The Toronto Star, and The Boston Globe, and fans have enthusiastically received her at the first stops of her 25-city international tour.

“We are thrilled to see Esi and her astonishing new novel recognized by this important international literary prize,” said Publisher and editor Patrick Crean. “There can be no doubt that Esi is a writer of the first order.”

From the blistering cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, from the earliest aquariums of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black is an electrifying story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, that asks the question, What is true freedom?

Esi Edugyan is the author of the novels The Second Life of Samuel Tyne and Half-Blood Blues, which was also 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, with her husband and two children.