Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead is an American novelist who has become one of the most decorated writers in contemporary American fiction. Born in New York City, he graduated from Harvard University. His work spans genres including literary fiction, horror, and genre-bending historical fiction. The Underground Railroad (2016) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Heartland Prize, and many others. It imagines the Underground Railroad as a literal underground railway system and follows an enslaved woman named Cora escaping from a Georgia plantation. The Nickel Boys (2019) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (making Whitehead one of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize twice), the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, and the Dublin Literary Award shortlist. Harlem Shuffle (2021) was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. Whitehead's earlier novels include The Intuitionist (1999), John Henry Days (2001), Apex Hides the Hurt (2006), Sag Harbor (2009), Zone One (2011), and The Noble Hustle (2014). He received a Whiting Award (2000) and a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in New York City.