Esi Edugyan Evinces CanLit Anxiety

I watched the Giller Prize on TV the other night and thought the production was a something of a snore-fest, starting with host Jian Ghomeshi. His bit about the Giller being particularly Canadian was particularly lame: David Bezmogis is a Latvian Jew, Patrick deWitt lives in Oregon, Zsuzsi Gartner has a first name no one can pronounce, and so on. Which brings me to Esi Edugyan, this year's winner: would the media and others stop constantly referring to her as being the Calgary-born daughter of Ghanaian immigrants. As if it matters where she was born or what her antecedents are. Or could it be that a successful woman of African ancestry is so obviously "the other", whether in the closed world of CanLit or more broadly, that journalists and commentators must express their anxiety about her by continually noting Ms. Edugyan's background. When I read Half-Blood Blues, likely bought from one of Hogtown's finer indie booksellers, I'll judge it on its merits not its author's connection to Cowtown and Ghana.