Flight to freedom
Is impressed by a tale of escape and abandonment that floats across the 19th-century globe
NICK RENNISON Washington Black by Esi Edugyan On a Barbados sugar plantation in 1830, a young slave is a witness to terrible brutalities, perpetrated by his sadistic master, Erasmus Wilde. The 11-year-old Washington Black watches in horror as a would-be escapee is burned alive and other slaves commit suicide, hoping they will be reincarnated in their ancestral lands.
However, Wash’s life changes course when his master’s brother, Christopher – known as ‘Titch’ – arrives in Barbados. A very different man to Erasmus, the eccentric Titch is a scientist and inventor, obsessed by his experiments in flight and the hot-air balloon he calls his ‘cloud-cutter’. He is looking for someone to help him and, almost on a whim, chooses the young slave to be his assistant. Released from his work in the fields, a new life beckons for Wash, one filled with wonders and the acquirement of knowledge. Titch believes in the abolition of slavery and a deep bond soon develops between the pair. However, their work on the cloud-cutter is interrupted by the arrival of the Wildes’ cousin, the melancholic Philip, who brings bad news from Britain, and makes a decision that drives both Titch and Wash into desperate action. The pair are forced to take flight from Barbados in their balloon. Fugitives from Erasmus’s fury, they head north but Titch himself then disappears, leaving Wash to face the world alone.
Esi Edugyan’s earlier novel, Half-Blood Blues, about black musicians in Nazi Europe, was deservedly shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Her new book is an extraordinary, picaresque tale in which her hero travels the world, from the wilderness of the Canadian Arctic to Nova Scotia, London and the deserts of Morocco, in search of the truth behind his abandonment. A richly entertaining read, it’s also a study of the true nature of freedom.