Children’s#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Garden of Lost Socks |
2023 |
Buy |
Non-Fiction#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Dreaming of Elsewhere |
2014 |
Buy |
| Out of the Sun: On Art, Race, and the Future |
2021 |
Buy |
Point In Time Collection Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Alison’s Conviction |
2022 |
Buy |
| Ash Wednesday |
2022 |
Buy |
| Naomi’s Gift |
2022 |
Buy |
| We Are Bone and Earth |
2022 |
Buy |
| A Wild Rose |
2022 |
Buy |
| Landing |
2022 |
Buy |
| Mother Swamp |
2022 |
Buy |
Standalone Novels#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Second Life of Samuel Tyne |
2004 |
Buy |
| Half-Blood Blues |
2011 |
Buy |
| Washington Black |
2018 |
Buy |
Esi Edugyan was born in 1978 in Calgary, Alberta, to Ghanaian parents. She studied creative writing at the University of Victoria under the mentorship of Jack Hodgins, then earned a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. Her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne (2004), follows a Ghanaian immigrant and his family who relocate to a small Alberta town once settled by formerly enslaved Americans. The New York Public Library named it one of 2004’s Books to Remember.
Her second novel, Half-Blood Blues (2011), is set in wartime Paris and Berlin, following a group of Black jazz musicians caught up in the Nazi occupation. It won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Washington Black (2018), about an enslaved boy who escapes a Barbados sugar plantation with his master’s eccentric brother in a homemade airship, won her a second Giller Prize and was again shortlisted for the Booker.
Beyond fiction, Edugyan delivered the 2021 CBC Massey Lectures, published as Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling, making her the first Black woman to give the Massey Lecture. She also wrote the children’s picture book Garden of Lost Socks (2023), illustrated by Amelie Dubois, about a girl who calls herself an Exquirologist, or finder of lost things. Edugyan chaired the 2023 Booker Prize jury.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books has Esi Edugyan written?
Esi Edugyan has written thirteen books across four series.
What was Esi Edugyan's first book?
Esi Edugyan’s first book is The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, published in 2004.
What awards has Esi Edugyan won?
Esi Edugyan has won the Scotiabank Giller Prize twice, first for Half-Blood Blues in 2011 and again for Washington Black in 2018. She is only the third writer, after M. G. Vassanji and Alice Munro, to win the Giller Prize more than once. Washington Black was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.