The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead reimagines the escape network as a literal railroad in a Pulitzer-winning novel of one woman’s flight from slavery.
Colson Whitehead takes the metaphor literally, imagining the escape network as an actual railroad running beneath the South. Cora, born into slavery on a Georgia plantation, flees north through a series of states that each stage a different American nightmare. The conceit lets Whitehead compress history and invention into one journey, and the novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Recommended by 1 Person
Oprah Winfrey
Every now and then a book comes along that reaches the marrow of your bones, settles in, and stays forever. This is one. It’s a tour de force, and I don’t say that lightly.
Book Club · August 2016
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