Эси Эдугян — новинки

Two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner and internationally bestselling author Esi Edugyan delivers an incisive analysis of the relationship between race and art.

Out of the Sun examines Black histories filtered through and depicted in art, and shows how new perspectives upend the larger, known narrative. History is a construction. What happens when we begin to consider stories at the margins, when we grant them a centrality? How does that complicate our certainties about who we are, as individuals, as nations, as human beings?

Die Flucht ist nur der Anfang Barbados, 1830: Der schwarze Sklavenjunge Washington Black schuftet auf einer Zuckerrohrplantage unter unmenschlichen Bedingungen. Bis er zum Leibdiener Christopher Wildes auserwählt wird, dem Bruder des brutalen Plantagenbesitzers. Christopher ist Erfinder, Entdecker, Naturwissenschaftler - und Gegner der Sklaverei. Das ungleiche Paar entkommt in einem selbst gebauten Luftschiff von der Plantage. Es beginnt eine abenteuerliche Flucht, die die beiden um die halbe Welt führen wird. Eine Geschichte von Selbstfindung und Verrat, von Liebe und Erlösung. Und eine Geschichte über die Frage: Was bedeutet Freiheit?

Working in the sticky heat of the Barbados sugar plantation where he was born, 11-year-old field slave Washington Black is terrified when he's made manservant to his master's offbeat brother. But naturalist/explorer Wilde, or "Titch," eagerly introduces Wash to a brave new world and protects him when a bounty is placed on his head, as they flee north along America's Atlantic coast to the chilly Arctic. But in their world, can friendship last?

When two English brothers take the helm of a Barbados sugar plantation, Washington Black - an eleven year-old field slave - finds himself selected as personal servant to one of these men. The eccentric Christopher 'Titch' Wilde is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor and abolitionist, whose single-minded pursuit of the perfect aerial machine mystifies all around him.

Titch's idealistic plans are soon shattered and Washington finds himself in mortal danger. They escape the island together, but then then Titch disappears and Washington must make his way alone, following the promise of freedom further than he ever dreamed possible.

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. Inspired by a true story, Washington Black is the extraordinary tale of a world destroyed and made whole again.

Chip told us not to go out. Said, don't you boys tempt the devil. But it been one brawl of a night, I tell you.The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymous Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black.Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero's bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there's more to the journey than he thought when Chip shares a mysterious letter, bringing to the surface secrets buried since Hiero's fate was settled. In Half Blood Blues, Esi…

The book follows a jazz bassist named Sidney "Sid" Griffiths and his bandmates, from the blues music scene in 1939 Berlin and Paris into the 1940s, when Griffiths and his friends attempt to flee the impending peril that looms over Germany. Racial hatred is in vogue, and a mixed-race German citizen (dubbed by the Nazis with the epithet "Rhineland Bastard") like Hiero Falk can be arrested and simply disappear, lost to history. Juxtaposed against this is another narrative, set in 1992. Sid and Chip re-unite and travel back to Berlin for the screening of the documentary about Hiero Falk, and in which both Sid and Chip appear. Watching their…

Suspenseful and atmospheric, this extraordinary novel portrays both the hardship and grace in the life of a man struggling to realize his destiny.

When Samuel Tyne emigrated from the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1955, he was determined to accomplish great things. He excelled at Oxford and then came to Canada with the uncle who raised him, leaving the traditions and hard life of his homeland behind. Here, in this nation of immigrants, Samuel would surely be free to follow his destined path to success.

That new beginning didn’t live up to Samuel’s expectations. As the novel opens fifteen years later, he is working as an economic forecaster for the government in Calgary. It’s a stiflingly bureaucratic, dead-end job, where petty managerial types and lifeless co-workers make Samuel’s days almost unbearable.

Everything changes for Samuel when he finds out that his Uncle Jacob has died. Samuel and his uncle had grown apart. They had not spoken for a number of years, though Jacob had raised Samuel and, in a way, sacrificed himself for Samuel’s future. Jacob’s death weighs heavily on Samuel, yet his reaction seems more about having “a singular chance to get all his sadness out” than about familial love. Samuel is jolted out of his sadness and his workaday world when he receives a call telling him he has inherited Jacob’s old mansion in the small town of Aster, Alberta. The town, originally settled by freed slaves from Oklahoma, sounds to Samuel like the perfect place to start a new life, one that would allow him to live up to his potential, and he decides to exchange the drudgery of the city for the simplicity of small-town existence. When Samuel leaves his office for good after yet another minor humiliation, we cheer his resolve and look forward to what the coming days will bring.

Samuel believes that he is setting on a path to fulfill his personal expectations, but we begin to see the signs of what one reviewer has called Samuel’s “pathological temerity.” He doesn’t tell his family what has happened: not that he’s inherited the house, or that he plans to move there or even that he’s quit his job. Instead, he spends his days tinkering in the shed, emerging at just the right time to make it seem like he’s coming home from work. The truth comes out only when one of his daughters discovers his secret. His deception points to a paralyzing inability to communicate with others and suggests that this new beginning may be as fruitless as the last.

Maud and the twins, Chloe and Yvette, resist the move to Aster, but are helpless in the face of Samuel’s conviction that this is the right thing to do. And when they arrive, their new home — a gloomy, worn-down remnant of days long past — doesn’t exactly fill them with hope. But the seeds of renewal have been sown, the move has been made and they hesitantly take up their new lives. At first, the Tynes seem to be settling in — they meet some of their neighbours, Samuel sets up his own electronics shop, Maud begins to fix up the house and the twins are curious enough to at least begin exploring their new home. However, the idealized Aster of Samuel’s imagination proves to be as false as his family’s veneer of acceptance, and a dark undercurrent of small-mindedness, racism and violence soon turns on the town’s newest residents. When mysterious fires begin to destroy local buildings, and the bizarre yet brilliant twins retreat into their own dark world, Samuel’s fabled second chance slips slowly out of his grasp.

The Second Life of Samuel Tyne is a harrowing and beautifully written work of fiction, one that shows us how fragile our dreams can be in the face of the relentless march of time. Esi Edugyan’s evocative writing and pitch-perfect ability to get into the minds of her characters confirm that this book heralds the arrival of a major new novelist.