The Underground Railroad (Television Tie-in): A Novel
By Colson Whitehead
Read by Bahni Turpin
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1 Format: Digital Download
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$20.00or 1 Credit
ISBN: 9781524736262
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. • Now an original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto, coming soon!
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Summary
Summary
Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Winner of a 2016 National Book Award
Winner of the 2017 Carnegie Medal for Literature
A London Guardian Pick of Best Books of the 21st Century
Man Booker Prize Longlist Selection
Short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award
A #1 New York Times Bestseller
A 2016 Oprah’s Book Club Selection
AudioFile Earphones Award Winner
A New York Times Editor’s Choice
A BookPage Top Pick for September 2016
Winner of Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, 2017
Winner of Arthur C. Clarke Award, 2017
Winner of Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, 2017
Among shortlisted titles for Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction, 2017
Among longlisted titles for Man Booker Prize for Fiction, 2017
Winner of National Book Award, 2016
Winner of Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, 2017
Winner of New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, 2016
Winner of Arthur C. Clarke Award, 2017
Winner of Pulitzer Prize (Fiction), 2017
Winner of Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, 2017
Among shortlisted titles for Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction, 2017
Among longlisted titles for Man Booker Prize for Fiction, 2017
Winner of National Book Award, 2016
Winner of New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, 2016
Winner of Pulitzer Prize (Fiction), 2017
Winner of Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, 2017
Winner of Arthur C. Clarke Award, 2017
Winner of Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, 2017
Among shortlisted titles for Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction, 2017
Among longlisted titles for Man Booker Prize for Fiction, 2017
Winner of National Book Award, 2016
Winner of New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, 2016
Winner of Pulitzer Prize (Fiction), 2017
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto, coming soon!
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Author
Author Bio: Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven works of fiction and nonfiction, is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which also won the National Book Award. His other awards include the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN Oakland Award, and the Young Lions Fiction Award, among others. His books have been named best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Time magazine, Boston Globe, and many more. He is a recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships.
Details
Details
| Available Formats : | Digital Download |
| Category: | Fiction/Literary |
| Runtime: | 10.73 |
| Audience: | Adult |
| Language: | English |
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