Video, Past Event
One Book One SFU with Esi Edugyan and Omar El Akkad
One Book One SFU: An evening of reading and conversation with Esi Edugyan and Omar El Akkad as they discuss the novel Washington Black on January 30th, 2020.
About the Book
"Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Washington Black is an engrossing hybrid of 19th-century adventure and contemporary subtlety, a rip-roaring tale of peril imbued with our most persistent strife." -- Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Escape is only the beginning. From the brutal cane plantations of Barbados to the icy wastes of the Canadian Arctic, from the mud-filled streets of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black is the tale –- inspired by a true story –- of a world destroyed and the search to make it whole again." -- 2018 Man Booker Prize Longlist Synopsis
Borrow the book: Copies of Washington Black are available to all members of the SFU community at SFU Burnaby's W.A.C. Bennett Library, SFU Vancouver's Belzberg Library, and SFU Surrey's Fraser Library.
About our Speakers
Esi Edugyan
Esi Edugyan is the author of the novels The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, Half-Blood Blues, and Washington Black. Half-Blood Blues won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her latest novel, Washington Black, also won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
Omar El Akkad
Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and numerous other locations around the world. He is the recipient of a National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. Omar lives in the woods just south of Portland, Oregon.
Presented by
SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, SFU Library, Pulpfiction Books
