Sterling K. Brown to star and executive produce TV adaptation of Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black | CBC Books

Edugyan’s third novel, Washington Black, tells the story of 11-year-old Washington “Wash” Black, a slave on a Barbados sugar plantation in the 19th century. When a man is killed, Wash has no choice but to escape his captors and ends up on an epic life-spanning adventure around the world. Over years of crossing icy tundra and documenting Atlantic shores, Wash grows into an artist, inventor and explorer.

The book won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s biggest literary award, in 2018.

“I feel like I’m in the best hands,” said Edugyan of the adaptation in a recent interview with CBC Books. “I’m excited to see it come about.”

Edugyan is delivering the 2021 Massey Lectures this fall. The talk is based on her nonfiction book Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling.

Brown is an actor known for his Emmy-winning roles in This Is Us and The People v. O.J. Simpson: An American Crime Story. He’ll play Medwin Harris, the larger-than-life leader of the Black community in Halifax, where Wash puts down roots and discovers his talent for scientific illustration.

“Washington Black inspires me!” said Brown in a press release.

“This young man and the adventure he undertakes remind me of how the power of imagination and the creativity of artistry can transform the world in which we live. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds has taken the transcendent words of Esi Edugyan and created a spectacular universe that brings to fruition the power of possibility.”