Washington Black
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Narrated by:
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Dion Graham
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By:
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Esi Edugyan
About this listen
A dazzling, original novel of slavery and freedom, from the author of the international best seller Half-Blood Blues
Longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize
When two English brothers arrive at a Barbados sugar plantation, they bring with them a darkness beyond what the slaves have already known. Washington Black - an 11-year-old field slave - is horrified to find himself chosen to live in the quarters of one of these men. But the man is not as Washington expects him to be. His new master is the eccentric Christopher Wilde - naturalist, explorer, inventor and abolitionist - whose obsession to perfect a winged flying machine disturbs all who know him. Washington is initiated into a world of wonder: a world where the night sea is set alight with fields of jellyfish, where a simple cloth canopy can propel a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning - and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human.
But when a man is killed one fateful night, Washington is left to the mercy of his new masters. Christopher Wilde must choose between family ties and young Washington's life. What follows is a flight along the eastern coast of America, as the men attempt to elude the bounty that has been placed on Washington's head. Their journey opens them up to the extraordinary: to a dark encounter with a necropsicist, a scholar of the flesh; to a voyage aboard a vessel captained by a hunter of a different kind; to a glimpse through an unexpected portal into the Underground Railroad. This is a novel of fraught bonds and betrayal. What brings Wilde and Washington together ultimately tears them apart, leaving Washington to seek his true self in a world that denies his very existence.
From the blistering cane fields of Barbados to the icy plains of the Canadian Arctic, from the mud-drowned streets of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black teems with all the strangeness of life. This inventive, electrifying novel asks, What is freedom? And can a life salvaged from the ashes ever be made whole?
©2018 Ides of March, Inc. (P)2018 Penguin Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...
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February, 1906. As the personal secretary of the recently departed duke of Olympia - and a woman of scrupulous character - Miss Emmeline Rose Truelove never expected her duties to involve steaming through the Mediterranean on a private yacht, under the prodigal eye of one Lord Silverton, the most charmingly corrupt bachelor in London. But here they are, improperly bound on a quest to find the duke's enigmatic heir, current whereabouts unknown. Maximilian Haywood was last seen at an archaeological dig on the island of Crete.
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This Book Would Have Been A Hot Mess...
- By Alexis on 10-06-16
By: Juliana Gray
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Lamentation
- The Psalms of Isaak, Book 1
- By: Ken Scholes
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Scott Brick, William Dufris, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Lamentation, the first entry in the Psalm of Isaak series, an ancient weapon has completely destroyed the city of Windwir. From many miles away, Rudolfo, Lord of the Nine Forest Houses, sees the horrifying column of smoke rising. He knows that war is coming to the Named Lands. Nearer to the Devastation, a young apprentice is the only survivor of the city—he sat waiting for his father outside the walls, and was transformed as he watched everyone he knew die in an instant. Soon all the Kingdoms of the Named Lands will be at each others' throats.
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Highly Enjoyable
- By RB on 05-15-09
By: Ken Scholes
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Instruments of Darkness
- A Novel
- By: Imogen Robertson
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the year 1780, Harriet Westerman, the willful mistress of a country manor in Sussex, finds a dead man on her grounds with a ring bearing the crest of Thornleigh Hall in his pocket. Not one to be bound by convention or to shy away from adventure, she recruits a reclusive local anatomist named Gabriel Crowther to help her find the murderer, and historical suspense's newest investigative duo is born.
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Not The Best, But Not Too Bad...
- By MJ on 01-13-13
By: Imogen Robertson
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The Oversight
- By: Charlie Fletcher
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Once there were hundreds of members of the Oversight, the brave souls who guard the borders between the mundane and the magic. Now there are only five. When a vagabond brings a screaming girl to the Oversight's London headquarters, she could answer their hopes for new recruit, or she could be the instrument of their downfall.
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Fantastic start to a fantasy series
- By jessica on 06-01-14
By: Charlie Fletcher
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The Essex Serpent
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at 19, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive 11-year old son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha.
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Unbearable Narrator
- By ACB on 06-08-17
By: Sarah Perry
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The Autumn Castle
- By: Kim Wilkins
- Narrated by: Richard Aspel
- Length: 19 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Berlin in autumn: Christine Starlight lives in an artists' colony with her lover Jude, whose patience and beauty have eased her battle with chronic pain. But Christine begins to be haunted by childhood recollections of a little girl's disappearance and the flapping of a blackbird's wings. Then her world is rocked by the return of a childhood friend... Mayfridh rules over a land where a wolf is the queen's counsellor, fate turns on the fall of an autumn leaf and mortals feel no pain.
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Great Story, Horrible Narration
- By KathyDB on 03-24-15
By: Kim Wilkins
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The Pale Blue Eye
- By: Louis Bayard
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
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Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
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Ship of Magic
- The Liveship Traders, Book 1
- By: Robin Hobb
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 35 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships---rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. The fortunes of one of Bingtown's oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her---a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim.
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Horrible Narrator
- By CP on 10-07-10
By: Robin Hobb
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Stations of the Tide
- By: Michael Swanwick
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The Jubilee Tides will drown the continents of the planet Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two-centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greater catastrophe threatens this dark and dangerous planet of tale-spinners, conjurers, and shapechangers. From author Michael Swanwick—one of the most brilliantly assured and darkly inventive writers of contemporary fiction—comes a masterwork of radically altered realities and world-shattering seductions.
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Hard to categorize, hard to put down
- By Robert L. on 03-25-12
By: Michael Swanwick
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The Incorruptibles
- By: John Hornor Jacobs
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In the contested and unexplored territories at the edge of the Empire, a boat is making its laborious way up stream. Riding along the banks are the mercenaries hired to protect it - from raiders, bandits and, most of all, the stretchers, elf-like natives who kill any intruders into their territory. The mercenaries know this is dangerous, deadly work. But it is what they do. In the boat the drunk governor of the territories and his sons and daughters make merry. They believe that their status makes them untouchable.
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Great world, competent prose, messy story
- By Melanie on 03-31-16
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Cold Magic
- By: Kate Elliott
- Narrated by: Charlotte Parry
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The Industrial Revolution has begun, factories are springing up across the country, and new technologies are transforming the cities. But the old ways do not die easy. Cat and Bee are part of this revolution. Young women at college, learning of the science that will shape their future and ignorant of the magics that rule their families. But all of that will change when the Cold Mages come for Cat. New dangers lurk around every corner and hidden threats menace her every move. If blood can't be trusted, who can you trust?
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Absolutely Brilliant Fantasy!
- By bluestatereader on 08-14-13
By: Kate Elliott
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Eon
- By: Greg Bear
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Perhaps it wasn't from our time, perhaps it wasn't even from our universe, but the arrival of the 300-kilometer long stone was the answer to humanity's desperate plea to end the threat of nuclear war. Inside the deep recesses of the stone lies Thistledown: the remnants of a human society, versed in English, Russian and Chinese. The artifacts of this familiar people foretell a great Death caused by the ravages of war, but the government and scientists are unable to decide how to use this knowledge.
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Am Epic Original SciFi Read Worth Your Time...
- By Michael on 07-01-12
By: Greg Bear
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The Blue Guitar
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel - at once trenchant, witty, and shattering - about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught.
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Masterful
- By Amazon customer on 11-25-15
By: John Banville
What listeners say about Washington Black
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rco to
- 12-08-18
Good overall but bad attempts at accents
Overall, I liked this story and the narrator has a pleasant voice. One thing I found distracting though is his attempt to mimic accents of different characters. Accents for individual characters (including the 1st person narrator) seemed to be “on” sometimes and then sometimes gone. Accents for some characters is just weird, like the “unmistakable” Scotsman, Willard, sounds like he’s got a very faint brogue hiding behind what I guess is the residual habit of attempting a Bahamian accent for the main character. The Dutch accents for the Haas’ are pretty badly done too. Would have been better to just narrate in a consistent voice vs. sometimes using accents, sometimes not, and doing them poorly. Narrator also seems to bring in a very emotional tone in a few suitable places...but not in others where it could be merited. So, sometimes you get the “Jules Verne” kind of energy that I think is intended, but there’s fewer peaks of excitement or wonder in the voice than I think the story deserves to bring it fully to life. Worth a listen, but pay attention to the content and use your own imagination for the accents and ebb and flow of adventure.
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- suekitty13
- 12-09-18
Just as good as you have heard!
This book deserves every award and accolade it has received. It is astonishing in it's vividness and emotional impact. Although it follows the life of one man from his childhood as a slave to his adulthood in London and beyond, Washington's adventures around the world are a truly epic story. I don't think I can say anything that hasn't already been said. It really is as great as you have heard.
The narrator, Dion Graham, gives a performance that is just as award worthy as Washington's tale. He gives so much emotion to the story and hearing how his voice changes as Wash ages is just incredible. Each of the characters has a distinct voice and sounds absolutely natural. I would swear this is a multi cast recording and not just one man!
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- Ellen
- 12-25-18
Superb!
Tremendous literary feat, Brilliantly written and original, This book is a compellingly readable tour de force. Loved every minute of it and the narrator was outstanding!
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- Buyer1
- 07-08-19
Just wow
This is a phenomenal book. The prose is beautiful and brought to life by the preformance. Esi Edugyan is clearly one of Canada's great writers. I expect Washington Black will be considered a classic.
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- Abel
- 09-22-22
Weak leading character dragged around the story
Good intentions but it’s hard to follow a main character that is just scared behind everyone, surviving by luck, for the first half and then following after a ghost for the second. Lots of very cliché (albeit true) slavery story points.
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- Vickie
- 11-19-18
Competent but far from outstanding
I’m hard pressed to understand why this novel has been the subject of lead reviews in prominent publications. The characters, the setting and the ostensible subject initially captured my interest, which soon waned however. The character development is shallow, the plot is weak, and the writing is bloated. The narration is excellent, the single high point.
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