♪ >> Valerie: Welcome to Canada Files .

I'm Valerie Pringle.

My guest today is Esi Edugyan.

The best-selling Canadian author of Washington Black and Half-Blood Blues .

Both books were short-listed for the Man Booker and won the Giller Prize.

Canada's most prestigious literary award.

They were also favoured books of both Oprah and Obama.

She grew up in Calgary, the daughter of immigrants from Ghana.

And writes beautifully about migration, belonging and home.

>> Valerie: Hi, Esi.

>> Esi: Hello.

>> Why are you interested in the idea of belonging?

...I read one piece where you're saying, "Is it where we are?

Is it who we are?

Is it who we're with?"

>> Yeah, I think the concept of belonging really sits at the heart of my own identity.

Being the child of Ghanian immigrants, born and raised in Calgary.

Somebody who's travelled widely, gone out into the world.

I think, having made those journeys abroad, and having to really define yourself as a Canadian, as a Ghanian Canadian.

This is something that got me really thinking about, you know, what really sits at the heart of a sense at being rooted in a place?

What are the things that maybe cause a sense of disinheritance, dislocation?

And what are the ways in which belonging is a construct.

Something that ultimately isn't defined by what's outside of you but something that you're building for yourself.

>> I remember talking years ago to a religious leader who said we may think our greatest need is to be loved.

But the even deeper and more profound need is to belong.

>> Mmmm.

I like that.

I like that very much.

Um...yeah, I think that's absolutely true.

I think when you go through the world with a sense of dislocation or disinheritance, you really can't establish yourself.

Any kind of impulse, creative act, or a sense of goodness, of what's possible for yourself.

All of those things are rooted in a sense of knowing where it is that you belong.

For me, within my own life, I think I found it challenging.

To, maybe be established in the family that I was in.

My parents made such a circuitous journey to be in Canada.

So they actually were both from Ghana-- from different parts of Ghana.

My father was from the south, my mother was from central Ghana.

They met in San Francisco, actually at a moon-landing party.

>> Which is adorable.

>> Which...it's so cute.

A wonderful meet-cute .

You know, a student from Kenya was throwing a party for a bunch of his friends who were ex-pats or African students.

And they happened to meet on that night.

Just were connected from that moment.

But they moved quite a bit.

They were in New York, San Francisco.

Um, they ultimately ended up in Edmonton.

My father was at the University of Alberta, doing his--I believe he was doing like post-graduate work.

He became a teacher of economics.

Then they moved to Calgary for a job.

And they often used to joke that they had to stop moving.

Because every time they moved, they had a child.

(laughing) So there was that.

But I really feel like late 1970s-80s, Alberta was just-- for somebody like me, it just felt like it was a challenge to really feel like I belonged.

>> Did you feel like an outsider?

>> I did feel very much like an outsider.

I knew my siblings also went through this.

This experience of feeling slightly disconnected.

Or standing slightly to one side of things.

Even while you're very much a part of the fabric of things.

You're going to the Calgary Stampede.

You're eating the same food as your classmates.

You're doing all of this.

But you come home and it's quite different.

We felt as though we didn't quite belong in the culture of our parents.

But we didn't quite belong in the culture of Alberta.

>> Interesting though is the kids feeling that.

>> So often, it's the migrant that's caught between 2 worlds.

>> Yeah.

>> And their kids...then catch the slipstream and assimilate.

>> Yeah I think that's the narrative but it can happen this other way as well.

But I really feel like, because of that, this idea of where am I from, where do I belong, what is my home?

These were things I really had to come and explore.

And ultimately construct for myself.

So in my twenties, I applied to so many different arts residences.

Just because I wanted to see a bit of the world.

I had a travel bug... >> You saw a huge part-- you did a huge amount of travel.

>> I did, yes.

>> US, Iceland, Germany, Hungary, Finland, Spain, China.

>> Yeah, and um... >> What did that give you?

>> That gave me a sense of feeling very much rooted, I guess, within my Canadian-ness .

Like...there's nothing so much to tell you that you're Canadian as going abroad and having to explain yourself as a Canadian.

And having to speak about, you know, Canadian history.

Also being asked outright, how are you Canadian?

What makes a Canadian a Canadian?

Which are impossible questions to answer but, you really start to recognize the ways in which you have been shaped and formed.

By your childhood experiences, by even the landscape.

Like I remember being able to leave my house and to look out and I could see the Rockies, from my front stoop.

It felt like there was this grand vista rolling along.

And this great sense of open skies.

You feel your smallness within the landscape.

I think that's something that psychologically does shape you.

So you start to understand the ways in which you're very much a western--from western Canada when you go out into the world.

>> But also...the old, ancient part of European culture.

And so many of the places you visited, you know.

As someone from the new world, in a sense, it's always so interesting to get a sense of that.

>> It is.

I lived in Germany for a year.

And actually lived in the out-buildings of... like a 17th-century pleasure palace.

That was sort of overlooking the city of Stuttgart.

That was very much a different experience than anything I'd known before in my life.

What was fascinating about that was that it was a residency in which they'd invited people from all around the world.

I think we were under the age of 32.

I believe was the cut-off.

So you were meeting people from everywhere.

From Scandinavia, Southeast Asia, Africa.

And you all sat around this long dining table for lunch and you would just speak.

I just thought, what an education!

I wish everybody could have this.

To hear the perspectives of people from all different nations.

And just to understand, yeah, just how much you are formed by where you're from.

>> When did you first see yourself as a storyteller-- as a writer?

>> Probably, I was quite young.

Yeah, I seemed to-- I was a huge reader as a child.

Um, and I think I just started to write.

I was quite young.

Probably 8 or 9 when I was writing my first stories.

But it wasn't anything serious.

Just sort of scribbling things down.

>> The first novel you wrote which is, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne won awards .

You know, good out of the gate.

But your second novel, you couldn't get a publisher.

>> Yeah, I think it's the case and pretty sure it's still the case today.

But certainly at the time when I was publishing, there was like, a great thirst for new voices.

They were even publishing programs devoted to just finding new writers and new voices.

Which was wonderful.

But first novels, generally speaking, you know, aren't huge best-sellers.

Without some kind of major push.

And even then, it's not something that's a done deal .

So Samuel Tyne sold very modestly.

If you have modest sales, it can be difficult to continue to publish.

>> Did you think you'd quit, after that?

>> I did.

It was really a struggle to write something else Like, I think...and I'm pretty sure this was the same for my contemporaries, I think we still thought we lived in the era of, for instance, a publishing career like Mordecai Richler.

Whose third novel was the novel that sort of established him.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

He's written two previous novels that I think nobody had really paid much attention to.

So I think there was this erroneous idea that this was what it was to publish.

And also that you could make a living, just by publishing poetry, novels and short stories.

Which, okay...that was something we were disabused of in fairly short order.

But yeah, I really felt myself to be in despair after publishing that novel.

I ended up writing a second novel which was never published actually.

It's still sitting in a drawer.

So to get the will and strength to write Half-Blood Blues ... it was really difficult.

You know, and I credit the support of my partner for helping to sort of, get me across the finish line.

Because I really didn't feel like I would write again.

>> Tell me how much you love research?

And how you do it!

Because everything is so detailed in your novels.

>> Yeah, I had a really wonderful professor of writing at the University of Victoria, Jack Hodgins.

He gave some advice which was, he said when you're writing a historical piece, the thing to do is research all that you can to get everything.

Read everything.

Go and sort of speak to whoever you can.

And when you have all of that information, then when you sit down at your desk to write, forget it all.

I felt like that was amazing advice.

Because, I think as a writer, you could just research and research and never write a word.

Like I'm somebody who'd prefer probably to just research.

And not have to do the heavy lifting of writing.

But it's something that I adore.

I love learning new things and facts.

I love making notes, speaking to people.

But ultimately when I sit at my desk, I have to forget it all.

>> Your desk must be really really messy.

Books!

>> It's an extremely messy desk.

Yeah, it's a horrifyingly messy desk.

>> You say you have a natural curiousity about historical footnotes.

Your ability to research and find little-known facts and stories that ...are nuggets that inspire you.

Even just reading... an African space program.

This ancient Chinese navy that you've sort of... the first black person in Canada.

You seem to go down these rabbit holes of research.

And then find inspiration there.

>> Yeah, that seems to have been the way I've worked in the past.

It's just...because I was always reading so widely.

It's been harder to read that way since having children.

And then since, uh, with all of the travel that's attendant with publishing.

But, you know, having read so widely, you come across these literal footnotes in books.

You're sort of thinking why is this being elided over?

And who is this person?

Then you can start to do more investigation.

Usually that's the most interesting person or incident.

And why isn't this something that's more well-known?

And yeah, my stories just seem to flow from there.

>> Washington Black took seven years.

>> Esi: Yeah.

>> Valerie: Again, started by a footnote.

And then, you know, it's called epic.

I mean, it's compared to Moby Dick .

As sort of a yarn, a real yarn.

>> Yeah.

That was something that...it started as a footnote.

But there was a whole kind of confluence of things that came together.

I remember, like several years ago, probably a decade ago, reading a short story by Jorge Luis Borges.

About a man called Andrew Bogle, who'd been an enslaved man.

But in this story, he's this mastermind who orchestrates this whole swindle that kind of takes over England in the 19th century.

It's a delightful story.

And I thought that it was completely, you know, made up.

As one would, because it's a fiction.

But...I was walking through the National Portrait Gallery in London and I turned and there suddenly was a portrait of Andrew Bogle.

It was a portrait of all of these people involved in this swindle.

I thought, oh my gosh, this was a real story.

>> And it's being turned into a tv series?

>> It is.

>> Yeah, Sterling K. Brown is producing.

>> Yes, that's right.

>> Are you involved?

>> I'm involved only in so far as I've read some of the scripts.

But I'm not a screenwriter so I'm not writing any of it.

>> Is this making you happy or nervous??

(laughing) >> You know, tv is such a different medium.

They're all just incredible writers and performers.

And I'm just really excited to see how they interpret the material.

>> You chaired the Booker Jury 2023.

>> You read 160 books.

>> Yeah.

>> Was this interesting?

Why would you do that?

Takes so much time.

Do you learn more about the whole game of how these work?

What was the take-away from that?

>> Yeah.

The Booker is a prize that I've been nominated for.

Or short-listed for, twice.

So I was interested to look, peek underneath the hood.

And see how things worked.

(laughter) But also I was just curious to see.

It's very rare, I think, that a writer gets a chance to get like a full picture of what's being published.

Or gets translated into English.

Like all around the world for a year.

It's like a snapshot of what's the best literature being published all around the world for this year.

And being able to see how others were working.

What were some of the main concerns that were being shared across nations.

Just all of these things.

Also the pleasure of getting to discuss literature with people who are very much steeped in it themselves.

But coming from different artistic disciplines.

I thought that would be really interesting.

I don't think I understood that it would be all-consuming.

I didn't write a word for a whole year.

I was just reading.

If you do the math, it ends up being like, almost a book a day that you're reading.

Some of these books are quite long.

So yeah, I felt there was never a moment when I wasn't reading- never a waking moment.

It was overwhelming but it was so pleasurable.

What a gift to get to engage with the best that world literature has to offer.

>> You're married to a writer.

>> I am.

>> A poet--how is that?

Is your house big enough for 2 writers?

How does that go?

>> Yeah, it's actually been good.

We've been each other's first editors and best editors.

He began as a poet.

But he very quickly became a novelist as well.

>> So yeah, nobody's sort of >> arguing about who's won what prize or... >> No.

>> Who's got more quiet.

Or has to take the kids.

>> Well, there are always those arguments in any household when you have two working parents.

Especially when your job occasions such travel.

We're constantly travelling when we have books that are out.

So we now have a kind of pact where we can't publish in the same year.

Just because somebody has to be home.

>> What are you working on now?

>> I'm working on a few things.

I've got a novel for children.

Like a middle-grade reader that I'm working on.

>> Because you've written one children's book already.

>> Yes, I did a picture book.

Which was such a pleasure, to travel with that book.

And speak to very young audiences.

I also got another novel for... >> Good?

>> Yes, a follow-up to Washington Black .

And I've given myself a challenge of not being so deeply historical.

Like I felt like there was a trend where I started with Samuel Tyne , writing about the 1960s.

Then leaping back into Half-Blood Blues , which was writing about early 20th centuries-- starting in 1920 and going to...

I guess that novel goes to 1990.

Then going to Washington Black which was set in the 1830s.

I thought, okay, I'm just going to keep delving so far back.

But I thought okay, I'm going to write something that feels a little bit more current and contemporary.

That's been a pleasure.

Something within my own living memory.

Which I think means less research.

But it also has other challenges as well.

>> In a male voice, as well?

You've got that male voice down.

(laughter) >> No, not in a male voice.

>> Really?

>> Yeah...not in a male voice.

>> That's another challenge, I think.

>> To be a woman?

>> Yeah, to write in a female voice from a female perspective.

I think that's.. just something I wanted to do.

>> Do you ever still wonder now--you say you had sort of despair after not finding a publisher at one point.

Books, what's the point?

Or is there any choice that you have about that?

>> You know, I think probably every writer goes through that.

With, I know in our household, it seems like every book is like, uggghhhh!

Every time we sit down to write a book, you think what's the point of this?

Who's going to read this?

Everybody's telling you that nobody reads anymore.

It's all about some Netflix and all of these things.

But I think....that books are the thing that sort of raised me and gave me such joy and pleasure as a child.

Showed me completely different worlds.

Allowed me to imagine going out into the world.

Experiencing it--seeing other countries and cultures.

That this was something that lived beyond the page.

It gave me that courage and perspective.

I think as a adult, it's the same thing.

I still have that desire to learn and travel.

To experience life in another skin, through reading.

So I'm never without a book.

Fiction, non-fiction, I'll read anything.

So I feel like there's a certain power in the written words.

That it's doing something different than television.

For all of the beauty of, you know, of certain televised series.

The way they're written in such a novelistic, beautiful, easily-accessed way.

I feel like there's something very different going on with a novel.

I think the engagement with language-- it's just--it takes you to a quieter place.

>> One of my favourite lines of yours, which I'd written down ages ago, it's from Half-Blood Blues .

It says, "The cabbie's eyes sort of glazed over.

Canada kills any conversation quick,I learned a long time ago.

It's a little trick of mine."

I love that.

(laughter) Really....we're so boring.

People go okay, a Canadian.

Snore.

(laughter) >> I remember those lunches that I was talking to you about, in Germany and sitting at the table with people from all of the nations.

There was this lovely American woman and she'd just sit across me and she'd say, "Ah, Canada, there's no much..." (laughter) What more is there to say?

You probably have nothing interesting to tell me.

Because...not much going on there.

>> You nailed it with that line.

Anyway, from there, we segue.

Because the final question we always ask people is what does being Canadian mean to you?

>> I think for me, being Canadian means holding on to these central tenets of which we all seem to agree are of huge importance to us.

Which are access to universal healthcare and education.

That these are things that we fundamentally believe everybody has...a right to.

This isn't something that we should just let fall by the wayside.

Otherwise, we are just an amazing nation of-- I mean, it's just so geographically diverse.

So culturally diverse.

It's an enormous land mass.

It's unwieldy.

It's, I imagine, so difficult to govern.

There're just so many different communities with different needs.

And so, but somehow it all holds together.

It's beautiful.

You know, we're not afraid to recognize and look at our difficult histories.

While also admitting that it's hard to figure out exactly how to reckon with that past.

But you know, I feel like we're a nation that is fundamentally committed to allowing people to try and live out their best lives.

Failing...probably, but maybe something we can all agree on is that maybe we're trying to commit to that.

>> Thank you so much.

It's been lovely talking to you.

>> Thank you very much.

Such a pleasure to be here.

>> We'll be back next week with another episode of Canada Files .

♪