Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
Man Booker Prize Finalist 2011
An Oprah Magazine Best Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
Berlin, 1939. The Hot Time Swingers, a popular jazz band, has been forbidden to play by the Nazis. Their young trumpet-player Hieronymus Falk, declared a musical genius by none other than Louis Armstrong, is arrested in a Paris café. He is never heard from again. He was twenty years old, a German citizen. And he was black.
Berlin, 1952. Falk is a jazz legend. Hot Time Swingers band members Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones, both African Americans from Baltimore, have appeared in a documentary about Falk. When they are invited to attend the film's premier, Sid's role in Falk's fate will be questioned and the two old musicians set off on a surprising and strange journey.
From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating, little-known world as he describes the friendships, love affairs and treacheries that led to Falk's incarceration in Sachsenhausen. Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues is a story about music and race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.
Download and start listening now!
"WOW! This is one fabulous tale! This was the Giller Award for 2011 in Canadian Lit. and has won numerous other awards and I must say very well deserved. I do not give 5 stars liberally, a novel must have a certain "grab" factor for my highest nomination, and this has it in spades. The flow and prose of this novel is so captivating that I was continuously using the annotations feature on my ereader. I have read a couple of Giller prize winners in the past (want to give a fellow Canuck props when I can)and found that some have been hit or miss with me but this book is real good, really good. Highly recommend!"
—
Bernie (5 out of 5 stars)