the underground railroad a novel by colson whitehead

GradeSaver, 14 April 2019 Web.Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Underground Railroad Author Colson Whitehead Next Section The Underground Railroad Summary Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Rothstein, Talia. For these connections the book draws, Juan Gabriel Vásquez calls it a 'brave and necessary' book. Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times writes that The Underground Railroad explores the 'toxic legacy' of slavery, identifiable in contemporary policies such as stop-and-frisk and the pervasiveness of police brutality. It was a #1 New York Times Bestseller and was selected for Oprah's Book Club.Ĭritics have also noted the book's scathing commentary on the effects of slavery that still echo in America today. It earned Colson Whitehead numerous literary accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Carnegie Medal for Fiction. It is in this context that The Underground Railroad was received with almost universal high praise. These are just a few examples of contemporary cultural salience of the experience of slavery and those who resisted it. Treasury announced Harriet Tubman would be depicted on a new twenty-dollar bill in 2013, the movie 12 Years a Slave made a splash and in 2004, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened in Cincinnati, Ohio, to commemorate and educate the public on the histories of those who worked and escape through the Underground Railroad. In 2016, the year Whitehead's novel was published, the U.S. The subject of the Underground Railroad itself has experienced a resurgence in American literary and media culture in the recent decade. Seamlessly navigating the genres of historical fiction, magical realism, and speculative fantasy, it is both a poignant, touching saga of one woman's perseverance in her quest for freedom, and an incisive commentary on the history and present-day contradictions of America. Throughout her journey to freedom, Cora and the other characters reflect on the character and workings of America: its promise of freedom and its bloody allegiance to profit and expansion.

Published in 2016 by award-winning American author, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroadis a gripping account of a runaway slave, Cora, as she makes her way through a fictionalized American landscape.

The underground railroad a novel by colson whitehead