Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this #1 New York Times bestseller chronicles a young slave’s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. The basis for the acclaimed original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins.Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp … fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.
In Colson Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.
As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman’s will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Harlem Shuffle!
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Great book, very well written, novel approach to tragic chapter in our history-slavery. Many metaphors, that are spot on.
Wonderful book.
Great story and great writing.
I truly didn’t care for this book. It is deceptive. I was looking for an accurate story telling historic facts about the underground railroad through a good fictional story. I was so very disappointed
I recently read this book to my sister. She needed to read it for school and I helped annotate, discuss and explain. This book was the best written book there is. Colton Whitehead has a way with words like no one else. This book was tragic therefore very hard to read due to the vivid imagery, and horrific treatment of African Americans. I cried through this book but I learned a lot and I feel so much compassion for everyone who continues to deal with discrimination to this day in modern society. (It’s still going on). Wow, just wow! You are a genius! I strongly Recommend that everyone reads this book.
I couldn’t stop reading but it made me ashamed of what all went on.
An amazing book, different than anything else I have read. Not sure how to describe it. A lot of insight into the lives of shaves and their attempts at escaping.
An important and interesting book, but packs so much info into so many characters it becomes hard to follow.
one of the finest books I’ve read.
One of the best historical novels describing the horrors of fugitive slaves that I have read.
Hard to get into. Good read after that
This book was a waste of my time!
I did not like this book. Thought it was a cross between The Stepford Wives and Hariiett Tubman!
Great read! Worthy of the awards it received.
amazing
Very good read
A very painful book yet could not put it down
What an interesting twist to the Underground Railroad. Upon watching a informative interview with Olson Whitehead I realized what a remarkable story that he was sharing. Even though this work is full of mostly fictional characters- I still found the writing convincingly realistic.
I could not get into this book.
MUst Read! Brilliant and enlightening, although horrifying at times.