Author: Esi Edugyan

“When you free, [if] someone ask you a question, you ain’t got to answer”. I paused when I read this and went over it a few times in my head. It’s something that we take for granted these days and the only time it shows up now is when someone  invokes their right by way of the Fifth Amendment of the US constitution.

Esi Edugyan spins quite a tale that starts in a sugar plantation in Barbados in the 1830’s and meanders all across the globe. I won’t say where she takes you as that will give away some of the drama that the author builds up through the four sections of the book. The first section has all the harrowing details of slavery that was very hard for me to read. Once you get past that,  you should fasten your seatbelt as you are in for a wild ride. The book is very well written and I found myself rooting for Washington Black all the way to the end.