Colson Whitehead’s latest work of fiction, The Underground Railroad, imagines the metaphorical underground railroad as a real railroad shuttling slaves to freedom. With this imaginative leap into fantasy, Whitehead also lays bare the cruel reality of slavery. Praise for this highly original novel has been universal, with Kirkus Reviews declaring that Whitehead executes his “inquiry into race mythology and history with rousing audacity and razor-sharp ingenuity; he is now assuredly a writer of the first rank” and Publishers Weekly calling it “literature at its finest and history at its most barbaric.” Join Fiction Keynote and Oprah pick Colson Whitehead as he talks with poet and executive editor for culture at BuzzFeed, Saeed Jones.
