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BOOK REVIEW: Fugitive slave in search of safety and identity

Friday October 12 2018
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Book cover: Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan.

By KARI MUTU

From the Caribbean to Canada to Morocco comes a slave adventure in the book Washington Black, by Canadian author Esi Edugyan.

George Washington Black is an 11-year-old slave in Barbados living on a sugar plantation called Faith. Washington narrates his story, beginning in the year 1830.

Wash, as he is commonly known, never knew his parents and was raised by a large and ornery slave woman called Big Kit. To Wash she dispenses a version of love that swings between fierce protection, harsh words and violent discipline.

The plantation master has recently died. His nephew Erasmus Wilde, a cruel man, arrives from England with his brother Christopher to manage the estate.

Christopher, who goes by the nickname Titch, is a peculiar scientist and secret abolitionist. It is a bittersweet moment when Washington becomes Titch’s assistant.

He is spared a dreadful life but also loses the affection of Big Kit, the only family he has ever known. While helping Titch with his scientific work, Washington is exposed to a life impossible for a slave. He learns to read and write, learns mathematics, natural sciences, and discovers an aptitude for drawing.

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Over the next six years, young Washington moves across three continents. He stays one step ahead of a bounty hunter, grows his scientific skills and even finds love. Yet Washington’s efforts to remain unseen clash with his growing desire for recognition of his scientific work.

As a coming-of-age tale we see a runaway slave trying to understand his place in the world, the meaning of family and making sense of rejection.

Washington says that Big Kit once described him as, “brilliant, that there would never again be a mind like mine.”

Besides his globetrotting adventures, Washington’s excellent mind is what struck me the most in this story. It is not often that you find slave characters that have professional talent or develop a career.

Real life examples of exceptional ex-slaves are the scientist Benjamin Bannekar, the statesman Frederick Douglass, and the author-educationist Booker T. Washington.

By casting Washington as a gifted individual Edugyan brings a refreshingly different perspective to the usual fugitive slave novel.

Her research is incredible and the story is told in beautiful language, with picturesque imagery and a collection of complex characters.

Edugyan, whose parents are Ghanaian, has written several novels and anthologies. Her second novel, Half-Blood Blues, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Washington Black was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018.

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