The Booked! Fernie Writers Series is a favourite with Fernie book lovers. These events feature some of Canada’s best and brightest literary talents. Everyone is welcome to attend but since seating is limited, it is suggested that you come early! There is no charge; however a suggested donation of $10 would be helpful to help bring new and exciting authors for future Booked! events.

Schedule:

• 7 pm – refreshments, cash bar and live entertainment from Kootenay performers
• 8 pm – Author reading with Q&A
• 9 pm – Live music, a social hour and book signing.

The first Booked! event in the Fernie Writers Series will be multi-award-winning Canadian novelist, Esi Edugyan.

Esi Edugyan was born in 1978 in Calgary, AB) to Ghanaian emigrant parents and earned  creative writing degrees from the University of Victoria (Bachelor of Arts) and Johns Hopkins University (Master of Arts). Author Jack Hawkins was her mentor at UVic and it was there that she met fellow writer and future spouse Steven Price.

Esi Edugyan’s literary awards are numerous:

– 2013 – Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
– 2012 – Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (shared with co-nominee, Steven Price)
– 2012 – Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
– 2011 – Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction (Canada)
– 2011 – Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
– 2011 – Man Booker Prize for Fiction
– 2011 – Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (Canada)
– 2011 – Scotiabank Giller Prize (Canada)

Half-Blood Blues focuses on the Second World War, jazz, and the Nazis’ treatment of the so-called “Rhineland Bastards” — Black Germans who came of age during the Third Reich and were largely the progeny of African occupation troops following the First World War. The literary masterpiece takes a look at topics of racism, genocide, the language of music, cultural exchange, nationality, and racial and cultural identity as it alternates between the early 1990s and the war years.

For more information about Booked! Fernie Writers Series guest author, Esi Edugyan, visit: https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/esi-edugyan