Cora, a slave on a Georgia plantation, gets the chance to escape when new arrival Caesar tells her about the Underground Railroad. Faced with the prospect of freedom, Cora feels torn — her own mother fled the plantation some time ago, leaving her to suffer alone. Still, she and Caesar ...
Accuracy and authenticity are not the same things, and “distortion” is a loaded term to begin with. In The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead interleaves the archival ephemera of slavery with his own dystopian imaginings. That the two are often indistinguishable shows that narratives need not...
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead Colson Whitehead’s masterpiece The Underground Railroad won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. This is an amazing piece of American historical fiction that reimagines the titular Underground Railroad as an actual...
There are also differing opinions about how closely historical fiction books must stick to the truth. Some historical novels chronicle true events that happened in the real world with as much accuracy and authenticity as possible. Others lean more heavily on the author’s imagination, and even inc...
A captivating novel about a little-known historical event. More info → The Underground Railroad Author: Colson Whitehead In this imaginative piece of historical fiction, the Underground Railroad of history becomes a subway—an actual locomotive, powered by coal and running on an actual track ...
A member of a wealthy, free Black family, Galen Vachon has a lot to lose when he decides to become a member of the Underground railroad network, and join the effort to free enslaved Southerners. His risky lifestyle catches up with him when, attacked and injured, he is forced to seek ...
I have a M.A. in History and worked at a museum that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad. My husband and I live near Boston and are the parents of two children. Watch my site for upcoming author events. Clara leads a discussion of her book at the Auburndale Community Library...
Colson Whitehead,The Underground Railroad(2016) Colson Whitehead’s 2016 novel is, as they say in the business, a shoo-in for this list. It won the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, the Arthur C. Clark Award, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. It was longlisted for the Booker...
When one of her fellow conductors brings her an injured man to hide, Hester doesn’t hesitate... even after she is told about the price on his head. The man in question is known as the “Black Daniel,” a vital member of the North’s Underground Railroad network. But Hester finds him...
Colson Whitehead, twice-winner of the Pulitzer Prize (forThe Underground RailroadandThe Nickel Boys), is to publishHarlem Shuffle,a 1960s-set heist billed as “a family saga masquerading as a crime novel” (Sept 14).Whitehead’shigh concept novels have often leaned on the conventions of genre...