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.