
Washington Black
“A lush, exhilarating travelogue reminiscent of Jules Verne.”
New Yorker
A #1 Amazon.com bestseller in African American Historical Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize
Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
Shortlisted for the 2019 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award
A New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book of the Year
An AudioFile Best Audiobook of the Year in Fiction
An Audible.com Best of the Year for Solo Male Performance
A Booklist Top 10 Pick of Historical Fiction on Audio
Among shortlisted titles for Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Among shortlisted titles for Booker Prize, 2018
Among shortlisted titles for Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, 2018
Winner of Scotiabank Giller Prize, 2018
Among shortlisted titles for Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Among shortlisted titles for Booker Prize, 2018
Among shortlisted titles for Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, 2018
Winner of Scotiabank Giller Prize, 2018
Eleven-year-old George Washington Black—or Wash—a field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is initially terrified when he is chosen as the manservant of his master’s brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning, and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human.
But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, they must abandon everything and flee together. Over the course of their travels, what brings Wash and Christopher together will tear them apart, propelling Wash ever farther across the globe in search of his true self. Spanning the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, London to Morocco, Washington Black is a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again.
Praise
