Edugyan, Esi, << eh DOO juhn, EHS ee >> (1977–…), is a black Canadian novelist. Her second novel, Half Blood Blues (2011), won the 2011 Giller Prize , a major Canadian literary award. It was also a finalist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, now called the Booker Prize , the most important literary award in the United Kingdom.
Half Blood Blues tells the story of Hieronymus Falk. Falk is a 20-year-old African German jazz musician, the son of a white German mother and a black African father. After the Germans occupy Paris in 1940, during World War II (1939-1945), they arrest Falk. He had gone out early in the morning without proper identification papers. Falk disappears after his arrest. Fifty years later, Sid, who was Falk’s band mate and the only witness to the arrest, recounts the events that led up to the musician’s disappearance. Critics have praised Edugyan for her beautiful use of language and her skill at weaving themes of love, race, and betrayal into the narrative.
Edugyan gained attention with her first novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne (2004). The novel deals with Samuel Tyne and his wife, both immigrants to Canada from Ghana. The book describes their struggle to find a place for themselves in a formerly all-black town in Alberta.
Edugyan also won the Giller Prize in 2018, with her third novel, Washington Black (2018). The novel follows the adventures of a young black field slave on a sugar cane plantation in Barbados in 1830. His life changes when he is chosen to become a servant to his master’s eccentric brother.
Edugyan was born on Oct. 23, 1977, in Calgary. Her parents had immigrated to Canada from Ghana and settled in Alberta. Edugyan studied creative writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. She taught writing at the University of Victoria from 2003 to 2005.
