LadyFiction #12: Art, Science, and the Legacies of Slavery in Esi Edugyan's Washington Black
With her guest Nele Sawallisch, Stefanie discusses Esi Edugyan's 2018
novel Washington Black. With Olaudah Equiano's 1789 autobiography as
intertext, the novel entangles the adventure story with the slave
narrative. As Washington Black travels from Barbados to the Arctic, from
Virginia to London, his narrative asks about the (hi)stories that remain
out of the light and the making of 19th century discoverer personas
against the backdrop of gratuitous black labor.