Esi Edugyan | |
---|---|
Born | 1977 (age 39–40) Calgary, Alberta |
Occupation | Writer |
Nationality | Canadian |
Period | 2004–present |
Notable works | Half-Blood Blues |
Notable awards |
Scotiabank Giller Prize 2011 Half-Blood Blues |
Spouse | Steven Price |
Esi Edugyan (born 1977) is a Canadian novelist.
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, to Ghanaian immigrant parents, 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.
Despite favourable reviews for her first novel, Edugyan had difficulty securing a publisher for her second fiction manuscript. 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".
Published in 2011, Half-Blood Blues was announced as a shortlisted nominee for that year's Man Booker Prize,Scotiabank Giller Prize,Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and Governor General's Award for English language fiction. She was one of two Canadian writers, alongside Patrick deWitt, to make all four award lists in 2011. On 8 November 2011, she won the Giller Prize for Half-Blood Blues. Again alongside deWitt, Half-Blood Blues was also shortlisted for the 2012 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. In April 2012, it was announced that Edugyan had won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Half-Blood Blues.