The Underground Railroad: A Novel#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER�• PULITZER PRIZE WINNER •�NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER •�"An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. One of The New York Times’s 10 Best Books of the 21st Century The basis for the acclaimed original Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto! |
Contents
Georgia | 9 |
Ridgeway | 73 |
South Carolina | 85 |
Stevens | 135 |
North Carolina | 143 |
Ethel | 193 |
Tennessee | 201 |
Caesar | 233 |
Indiana | 241 |
Mabel | 295 |
The North | 303 |
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abolitionist Ajarry attic beneath Bessie birthday blood body Boseman cabin Caesar chains colored COLSON WHITEHEAD Connelly Cora asked Cora thought Cora's cotton dark didn’t dirt door dormitory dress escape Ethel eyes face father Fiona Fletcher Freedom Trail fugitives Georgia girl going handcar hands Harlem Shuffle head heard Homer Jamison Jasper John Valentine knew Lander lived looked Lovey Lumbly Mabel man’s Martin master Mingo Miss Lucy Molly morning mother moved negro never nigger night riders park patrollers pickaninnies picked pulled Randall plantation returned Ridgeway rows Royal runaways schoolhouse slave catcher slavery smell sold South Carolina station agent stepped Stevens stopped story Sybil talk Tennessee Terrance things tion told Cora took town tunnel turned underground railroad Valentine farm wagon waited walked walls wanted week window woman women young