Half Blood Blues [Paperback]

'Assured, vivid and persuasive... Impressively evocative of period and place, and an effortlessly involving and dramatically unusual second novel.' --Time Out

'Mesmerising... Edugyan has a perfect ear for conversations and the confusions of human love and jealousy... moving... A remarkable novel.' --Morning Star

A lucid and handsomely illustrated narrative, from the Saxon dawn of England to the Cameron Government --The Times

Full of stand-out facts ... Absolutely fascinating ... I've learnt an awful lot --Richard Bacon,BBC Radio 2

Immediately accessible --Prospect

This is traditional, kings-and-things, great-men history with all its dates and famous quotations in place ... it's jolly good ... Jenkins has a newspaper columnist's aphoristic verve ... judgements are crisp
--Spectator

'This is a wonderful, vibrant, tense novel' --Susan Hill (Man Booker Prize judge)

'Extraordinary in its evocation of time and place, its shimmering jazz vernacular, its pitch-perfect male banter and its period slang' --Arifa Akbar, Independent

'A superbly atmospheric prologue kick-starts a thrilling story about truth and betrayal... [a] brilliant, fast-moving novel' --Kate Saunders, Times

'Edugyan's ventriloquism is a compelling, personal and authentic, her story deeply researched' --Robert McCrum, Observer

'A densely researched tale musing on timeless themes of jealousy and betrayal' --Daily Mail

'Powerful and effortlessly written' --Pride

'A story so rich in texture, so deeply felt and imagined, that from the first, savoury sentences, you're hooked' --The Lady

'A moving, lyrical exploration of the plight of mixed-race immigrants rendered stateless by the Second World War' --Country Life

'A great and original novel... tense, richly humorous and enjoyable' --Independent on Sunday

'A captivating novel of music, memory and storytelling' --TLS

A story of friendship, betrayal and redemption, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011

The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymus Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, is arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He is twenty years old. A German citizen. And he is black. Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero's bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there's more to the journey than he thought when Chip shares a mysterious letter, bringing to the surface secrets buried since Hiero's fate was settled. In Half Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan weaves the horror of betrayal, the burden of loyalty and the possibility that, if you don't tell your story, someone else might tell it for you. And they just might tell it wrong ...

The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymus Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black. Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero's bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there's more to the journey than he thought when Chip shares a mysterious letter, bringing to the surface secrets buried since Hiero's fate was settled. Half Blood Blues weaves the horror of betrayal, the burden of loyalty and the possibility that, if you don't tell your story, someone else might tell it for you. And they just might tell it wrong ...

Esi Edugyan has degrees from the University of Victoria and Johns Hopkins University. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Best New American Voices 2003. Her debut novel, written when she was 25, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, was published internationally. She currently lives in Victoria, British Columbia. www.esiedugyan.com