Esi Edugyan

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Esi Edugyan
Born1977 (age 46–47)
Calgary, Alberta
OccupationWriter
NationalityCanadian
Period2004–present
Notable worksHalf-Blood Blues
Notable awardsScotiabank Giller Prize
2011 Half-Blood Blues
SpouseSteven Price

Esi Edugyan (born 1977) is a Canadian novelist.[1]

Biography

Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, to Ghanaian immigrant parents,[1] she studied creative writing at the University of Victoria and Johns Hopkins University before publishing her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, in 2004.[1]

Despite favourable reviews for her first novel, Edugyan had difficulty securing a publisher for her second fiction manuscript.[1] She spent some time as a writer-in-residence in Stuttgart, Germany, which inspired her to drop her unsold manuscript and write another novel, Half-Blood Blues, about a mixed-race jazz musician in World War II-era Europe who is abducted by the Nazis as a "Rhineland Bastard".[1]

Published in 2011, Half-Blood Blues was announced as a shortlisted nominee for that year's Man Booker Prize,[2] Scotiabank Giller Prize,[3] Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize[4] and Governor General's Award for English language fiction.[5] She was one of two Canadian writers, alongside Patrick deWitt, to make all four award lists in 2011.[3] On 8 November 2011, she won the Giller Prize for Half-Blood Blues.[6] Again alongside deWitt, Half-Blood Blues was also shortlisted for the 2012 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction.[7] In April 2012, it was announced that Edugyan had won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Half-Blood Blues.[8]

In 2014 she published her first work of non-fiction Dreaming of Elsewhere: Observations on Home with the University of Alberta Press.[9] In 2016 Edugyan was writer-in-residence at Athabasca University in Edmonton, Alberta.

Personal life

Edugyan lives in Victoria, British Columbia, and is married to novelist and poet Steven Price.[1]

Works

References

External links