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An Evening with Esi Edugyan

Tuesday Sep 11 2018 7:00 pm, Winnipeg, Grant Park in the Atrium
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In conversation with Michael Kaan and signing Washington Black (HarperCollins Canada).

Co-presented by the Winnipeg International Writers Festival as part of our collaborative Fall Literary Series.

In 1830, two English brothers arrive at a Barbados sugar plantation. Washington Black—an eleven-year-old field slave—is horrified to find himself chosen to live in the quarters of one of these men. But his new master is not as Washington expects him to be. He is the eccentric Christopher Wilde—naturalist, explorer, inventor and abolitionist—and Washington is initiated into a world of wonder. But when a man is killed one fateful night, Washington is left at the mercy of his new masters. Christopher Wilde must choose between family ties and young Washington’s life.

What follows is a flight along the eastern coast of America, as the men attempt to elude the bounty that has been placed on Washington’s head. From the blistering cane fields of Barbados to the icy wastes of the Canadian Arctic, from the mud-drowned streets of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black teems with all the strangeness and mystery of life.

Esi Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Prize and the Orange Prize. Esi lives in Victoria, BC.

Michael KaanHost Michael Kaan was born in Winnipeg, the second child of a father from Hong Kong and a Canadian mother. He completed a degree in English from the University of Manitoba, later completing an MBA in Health Economics from the same institution. His first novel, The Water Beetles, has won numerous awards including the 2018 Amazon First Novel Award, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the 2017 Governor General’s Literary Award in fiction.

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