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- “Anytime an African American writes an unconventional novel, the writer gets compared to Ellison,” he says. “But that’s OK. I am working in the African American literary tradition. That’s my aim and what I see as my mission.”
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Jul 18, 2023 · Colson Whitehead on the heists, fire, and movie magic of his new novel Crook Manifesto. The two-time Pulitzer winner is using his Harlem Shuffle trilogy to tell the history of New York.
Oct 21, 2021 · “But that’s OK. I am working in the African American literary tradition. That’s my aim and what I see as my mission.” Whitehead says he is now working on a novel “about Band-Aids.”
Jun 27, 2019 · Colson Whitehead's 'The Nickel Boys' cements his place in the American literary canon, and as a landmark figure in African-American history.
Jul 18, 2023 · Colson Whitehead reached stellar literary status with his Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning 2016 novel The Underground Railroad, later adapted for an Amazon Prime limited series. Then he received a stunning second Pulitzer for his 2019 book, The Nickel Boys.
- Hugh Delehanty
- The Intuitionist
- John Henry Days
- The Colossus of New York
- Apex Hides The Hurt
- Sag Harbor
- Zone One
- The Noble Hustle
- The Underground Railroad
- The Nickel Boys
Whitehead’sdebut novel follows the aftermath of an elevator crash where the blame is placed on the unnamed city’s first black female elevator inspector. “In New York City, inspectors have precincts sort of like cops,” Whitehead says. “So I thought, Wouldn’t it be weird if an elevator inspector had to be a real inspector and solve a case?”
The tale of John Henry, the black steel driver who died while attempting to outrace a steam drill, stuck with Whitehead for many years. In his second novel, a festival commemorating Henry draws a big crowd, including a young journalist who is hoping to beat a record for junketeering. “I wanted to be more expansive and have many different voices, a ...
“After 9/11, I put down what I was working on to figure out how to live in my city,” Whitehead says. “It was part therapy, part exercising a new narrative muscle.” His nonfiction collection celebrates New York City, detailing areas and feelings unique to the city, like traveling through the crowds in Port Authority Bus Terminal or experiencing the ...
While walking around New York during the time he was writing Colossus, Whitehead grew curious about the way cities come together, like how street names are decided. Apex Hides the Hurt is centered around a community that hires a consultant to potentially rename their town. “I was thinking about how a city is formed and saw an article with a brandin...
In Whitehead’s fifth book, 15-year-old Benji Cooper spends a formative summer in Sag Harbor, where he reckons with his identity and the trials of growing up. Whitehead himself spent summers with his family in Sag Harbor as a kid, and the book is reminiscent of his own experience. “It was time for me not to be so distant. I would grow as a writer an...
This apocalyptic novel explores life in an alternate version of New York City, which has been destroyed by a plague that has turned a majority of the population into zombies. “I saw Night of the Living Dead at an early age, and zombies became part of my psychological landscape,” Whitehead says. “I’d have zombie dreams every month for years.”
When Grantland asked Whitehead to cover the World Series of Poker in 2011, he didn’t want to go. But when they offered to pay his entrance fee so he could play himself, he enthusiastically agreed. Though Whitehead says he was a “pretty experienced home player,” he started training seriously before heading to Las Vegas. “Imagining the embarrassment ...
“Like a lot of people, when I first heard those words I thought it was a little train,” Whitehead says of the underground railroad. In his eighth book, he imagines the journey of a young enslaved woman whose path to freedom involves a literal hidden railroad. “I didn’t think I could pull it off,” he says of the novel, which went on to win both the ...
Inspired by the true story of an abusive reform school in Florida, Whitehead’s upcoming novel delves into the lives of two boys at the Nickel Academy. Elwood and Turner seek to discover their place in Jim Crow America while suffering mistreatment at the school. “It’s about places with no accountability. That dynamic between the powerful and the hel...
- Annabel Gutterman
Feb 15, 2017 · This week we’ve returned to Jeremiah Chamberlin’s interview with Colson Whitehead, which was originally published on May 30 of 2009. He spoke with Chamberlin on May 16th, during his visit to the 2009 Ann Arbor Book Festival. His then-most-recent novel, Sag Harbor, had just been released.
Mar 1, 2021 · What does that mean? Colson Whitehead: To create a realistic world, a realistic plantation, a realistic Florida in the South under Jim Crow, it's bleak and it's terrible.
