The Underground Railroad

By Colson Whitehead

Book Overview

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - PULITZER PRIZE WINNER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.

One of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of the 21st Century

The basis for the acclaimed original 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 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, Crook Manifesto

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345804325
• ISBN13: 9780345804327
• Release Date: January 2016
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Reimagining a Life-Saving Reality

Colson Whitehead lays out the brutality of slavery and racism, while kindling the light of hope, as a literal underground railroad transports an escaping slave - a brave and bruised young woman - through multiple states and harrowing experiences that wound but never extinguish her remarkable spirit. The author deftly employs irony and feigned objectivity while taking us deep into the heart of compassion. Do not deny yourself this journey.

Interesting, but not amazing

As an avid reader of historical fiction, I was eager to pick up this book. However, once I did pick it up, I struggled to find the enthusiasm to finish it. I was not surprised by anything that happened until past page 100. I also thought Whitehead spent too much time developing certain secondary characters' stories, like the doctor's past life, and not enough time developing significant plot points like the big reveal regarding South Carolina (which, for me, was the first seriously jolting and interesting reveal in the book). And I was a bit jarred by Whitehead's literal interpretation of the Underground Railroad, and his stretching the truth to say that the railroad extended so far South. Overall, though, I am happy to have read a popular book that so many people I know have also read.

Amazing writer

Cannot wait to read more by this author!