Time To Read

Thank you for joining us this month for our discussion of Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. Many many thanks to guest hosts Alexa Potashnik and Sappfyre McLeod from Black Space Winnipeg! George Washington Black is a young field slave born on a Barbados sugar plantation. When his master’s eccentric brother chooses him as manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or “Titch,” is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist. He initiates Wash into a world of technology and science, where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by circumstances of birth, might begin to see each other as human. When a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, Titch and Wash escape in a fable-like flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic. There Wash, left suddenly on his own, must invent himself anew and is again adrift across the globe. (Blurb adapted from goodreads.com) In This Episode