Bondage and buoyancy in Esi Edugyan’s “Washington Black.”
“Tell me, child, have you ever witnessed a harvest moon through a reflector scope?” These are among the first words addressed to George Washington (Wash) Black, an unlettered, twelve-year-old slave on a brutal Barbados sugar plantation, by Christopher (Titch) Wilde, gentleman scientist and the brother of Wash’s sadistic British master. In Esi Edugyan’s third novel, “Washington Black” (Knopf ), Titch’s inquiry marks the beginning of a friendship both beautiful and tormenting, liberating and circumscribed. Titch is the first white man to treat Wash decently. It is such an alien experience that, when the young slave is directed to sit at the same table with the stranger, and perches on an upholstered chair, it seems so soft that it’s “monstrous.”
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 24, 2018-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 24, 2018-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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Thataway Thomas McGuane
The two sisters were growing old now, but they went on gazing toward Palm Springs from this windblown prairie town as though to Mecca.
THE CURRENT CINEMA APOCALYPSE WHEN
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THE THEATRE - PHOTO REALISM
Moisés Kaufman's Here There Are Blueberries.”
AGE OF ANXIETY
The love songs of Billie Eilish.
FAMILY PORTRAIT
In his latest novel, Garth Risk Hallberg shrinks his frame.
EYES UP HERE
The perils and pleasures of a nice rack.
A CRITIC AT LARGE SAY THE WORD
Why liberals struggle to defend liberalism.
A REPORTER AT LARGE YOU MAKE ME SICK
How corporate scientists discovered—and then helped to conceal—the dangers of forever chemicals.
THE WORLD OF TELEVISION CASTOFFS
REALITY-TV CONTESTANTS ARE BARELY PAID, AND THE EXPERIENCE CAN FEEL LIKE ABUSE. SHOULD THEY UNIONIZE?
SHOUTS & MURMURS IDENTIFIED
A panel of scientific experts commissioned by NASA to study unidentified anomalous phenomena,” more widely known as UFOs, said Thursday that it found no evidence that any of the reported objects were extraterrestrial in origin.