Out of The Sun: Essays at the Crossroads of Race

(Paperback, Main)

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History is a construction. What happens when we bring stories consigned to the margins up to the light How does that complicate our certainties about who we are, as individuals, as nations, as human beings

As in her fiction, the essays in Out of the Sun demonstrate Esi Edugyan's commitment to seeking out the stories of Black lives that history has failed to record. In five wide-ranging essays, written with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the background, Edugyan reflects on her own identity and experiences. She delves into the history of Western Art and the truths about Black lives that it fails to reveal, and the ways contemporary Black artists are reclaiming and reimagining those lives. She explores and celebrates the legacy of Afrofuturism, the complex and problematic practice of racial passing, the place of ghosts and haunting in the imagination, and the fascinating relationship between Africa and Asia dating back to the 6th Century.

With calm, piercing intelligence, Edugyan asks difficult questions about how we reckon with the past and imagine the future.

Reviews

'Stunning ... An enlightening, multifaceted and thoroughly engrossing look at what blackness means and has meant through the centuries' - Irish Times

'In its breadth, beauty and candour, this is a beguiling collection. And if, after reading it you leave with more questions than you started - which might be a complaint in a lesser book - then I suspect it has achieved its aim' - Kuba Shand-Baptiste

'A remarkable collection of essays on representation, race, identity and history. Edugyan must now be counted as one of the finest essayists of her generation, as well as one of the best novelists' - Matthew D'Ancona

'Praise for Esi Edugyan: Wondrous ... gripping ... vivid and captivating' - Economist

'Magnificent and strikingly visual prose' - Financial Times

Author Bio

Esi Edugyan's novel Washington Black was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and The Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her previous novel, Half Blood Blues won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Governor-General's Literary Award, the Rogers Writers' Trust Prize and the Orange Prize.