Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling

An insightful exploration and moving meditation on identity, art, and belonging.

What happens when we begin to consider stories at the margins, when we grant them centrality? How does that complicate our certainties about who we are, as individuals, as nations, as human beings?

Through the lens of visual art, literature, film, as well as Esi Edugyan’s own lived experience, Out of the Sun examines the depiction of Black histories in works of the imagination, while challenging accepted versions of the Black experience with new perspectives.

The award-winning novelist believes we need to rediscover our “ghosts,” those whose stories are ignored in the writing of history. According to Edugyan, we are all worse off for not knowing the story of our past—stories that are left out of the historical record. The past is more complicated than perhaps we want to believe, and it’s always open to question.

Esi Edugyan, one of the most celebrated writers of the last decade, is also the author of Washington Black, an epic work of historical fiction, which examines race and identity. Actor Sterling K. Brown has agreed to star and executive produce a TV adaptation of Washington Black.

The nine-episode series will follow the 19th-century adventures of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old slave born on a Barbados sugar plantation who becomes a globe-trotting artist, scientist, and inventor.

“Washington Black inspires me!” said Brown in an interview with Variety. “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.”

Esi Edugyan is co-producer of the series, due to be released on Hulu. There’s no word yet on when Washington Black will begin filming or when the show might eventually air.