Underground Railroad

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017 n n WINNER OF THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2017 n n LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 n n NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER 2016 n n AMAZON.COM #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016 n n #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR n n 'Whitehead is on a roll: the reviews have been sublime' Guardian n n 'Luminous, furious, wildly inventive' Observer n n 'Hands down one of the best, if not the best, book I've read this year' Stylist n n 'Dazzling' New York Review of Books n n n Praised by Barack Obama and an Oprah Book Club Pick, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead won the National Book Award 2016 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017. n n Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North. n n In Whitehead's razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated box car pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But its placid surface masks an infernal scheme designed for its unknowing black inhabitants. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher sent to find Cora, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. n n At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates t