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Esi Edugyan

Esi Edugyan

Prizes judged
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Esi Edugyan, Chair of the Booker Prize 2023 judges, is the internationally bestselling author of Washington Black, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2018, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Carnegie Medal for Literary Excellence, among others – and won the Scotiabank Giller Prize

It was chosen by both the New York Times and Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2018. The epic Hulu/Disney TV series of Washington Black, starring Sterling K Brown and co-produced by Edugyan, was released in 2025.

Edugyan’s other novels include The Second Life of Samuel Tyne and Half-Blood Blues, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2011, as well as for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Governor General’s Literary Award. Half-Blood Blues won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

Edugyan is also the author of Dreaming of Elsewhere: Observations on Home and more recently Out of the Sun: Essays at the Crossroads of Race, delivered in Canada as the Massey Lectures. Her first children’s book, Garden of Lost Socks, will be published next year by HarperCollins Canada.

Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Edugyan is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Victoria, where she now lives. She has held fellowships in the US, Scotland, Iceland, Germany, Hungary, Finland, Spain, and Belgium, and judged prizes including the Giller Prize with Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Lethem.

Read more on Esi Edugyan

Esi Edugyan

Esi Edugyan Q&A

‘I think the challenge with every historical novel is to convey a sense of lived authenticity.’

Esi Edugyan on video

Esi Edugyan on judging the Booker Prize 2023 | The Booker Prize

Esi Edugyan discusses Washington Black on National Prison Radio | The Booker Prize

All nominated books

Half-Blood Blues
Esi Edugyan explores loyalty, betrayal and the horror that, if you don’t tell your story, someone else might. And they just might tell it wrong
Washington Black
Esi Edugyan relates the astonishing adventures of Washington Black, whose escape from the brutal cane plantations of Barbados was only the beginning