Esi Edugyan

"Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Patrick Crean Editions, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., Toronto, in 2018"--Copyright page.

Washington Black

Nienke Timmermans

The air was still and hot, and smelled of some nutty substance, earthy and edible, and of freshly washed stone. Peering down the hall, I saw a bright room already filling with sun, dust turning in the white light. A window glowing with sunlight. I entered the room, and the tattered burgundy rug under my naked toes was like some stiff, dead creature, I shuddered.

These sketches were some of the softest I ever drew. True, I had done technically better ones, ones in which a flower looked so powdery it seemed the paper might break apart at a touch. But these secret etchings of the glutton were strangely vivid, underlit with a tenderness I did not understand. I showed them to no one, Titch least of all. Each night in my room I tore them up, burned them piece by piece in the candle's fame.

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