New Releases by Colson Whitehead

Den unge slave Cora vokser op på en bomuldsplantage i Georgia under umenneskelige forhold, og som udstødt blandt sine egne. Cora overtales af slaven Caesar til at flygte og opsøge "den underjordiske jernbane"

Galardonada con el Premio Pulitzer 2017 y con el National Book Award, El ferrocarril subterráneo ha sido el acontecimiento literario del año en Estados Unidos. Colson Whitehead es uno de los pocos escritores que ha conseguido ambos premios por el mismo libro. Con El ferrocarril subterráneo entra a formar parte del grupo de grandes nombres como Faulkner, Proulx, Updike y A. Walker. Una renovada visión de la esclavitud donde se mezclan leyenda y realidad y que oculta una historia universal: la de la lucha por escapar al propio destino Cora es una joven esclava de una plantación de algodón en Georgia. Abandonada por su madre, vive sometida a la crueldad de sus amos. Cuando César, un joven de Virginia, le habla del ferrocarril subterráneo, ambos deciden iniciar una arriesgada huida hacia el Norte para conseguir la libertad. El ferrocarril subterráneo convierte en realidad una fábula de la época e imagina una verdadera red de estaciones clandestinas unidas por raíles subterráneos que cruzan el país. En su huida, Cora recorrerá los diferentes estados, y en cada parada se encontrará un mundo completamente diferente, mientras acumula decepciones en el transcurso de una bajada a los infiernos de la condición humana... Aun así, también habrá destellos de humanidad que le harán mantener la esperanza. Whitehead nos brinda una historia universal, onírica y a la vez brutalmente realista, sobre la libertad y las ilusiones truncadas, que nos habla de la fuerza sobrehumana que emerge ante la determinación de cambiar el propio destino. «De manera similar a Robert Wright, Whitehead no solo examina los vestigios de la esclavitud y el racismo, sino también la manera en que el miedo nos esclaviza a todos y fomenta un sistema de desigualdad autopropulsado. Con Cora, recordamos la importancia de la rebelión y la libertad; temas que nos dan una chispa de esperanza en estos momentos tan oscuros.» Freddie Braun, Vogue ("6 novelas fundamentales de autores negros que deberías añadir a tu lista de lecturas") El ferrocarril subterráneo ha sido ganador del Premio Pulitzer 2017, National Book Award 2016, Indies Choice Book Award 2017, galardonado con la Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence, destacada por Barack Obama y Ophra Winfrey, número 1 de la lista de best seller de The New York Times durante más de 36 semanas, seleccionado libro del año 2016 por Amazon y Apple, una de las mejores novelas de 2016 según The New York Times Book Review y Publishers Weekly. La adaptación televisiva de la novela correrá a cargo de Barry Jenkins, director de Moonlight, ganadora del Oscar a la mejor película en 2017.

Romanen der har rystet Amerika. ”En sjælden gang imellem dukker der en bog op, der går igennem marv og ben, flytter ind i en og bliver der for altid. Sådan en bog er Den underjordiske jernbane.” OPRAH WINFREY Tænk, hvis Den underjordiske jernbane havde været en rigtig jernbane med vogne og skinner under jorden. Hvis hver eneste station på den farlige tur mod nord havde budt på en ny chance – en bedre udgave af Amerika for en slave på flugt. Den tanke har den anerkendte amerikanske forfatter, Colson Whitehead, skrevet igennem i sin stærkt anmelderroste og prisbelønnede roman. Hovedpersonen er den sekstenårige Cora, der er slave på en bomuldsplantage i Georgia. Hun lever i daglig angst fornedrelse, men også med myten om sin mor, Mabel, der flygtede og klarede den. Cora og hendes ven, markslaven Cæcar, begiver sig ud på den dødsensfarlige flugt, men den fanatiske slavejæger, Ridgeway, som Mabel slap fra dengang, sætter nu alt ind på at fange hendes datter og smadre det netværk af mennesker, som hjælper de bortløbne. På sin rejse nordpå må Cora ikke bare overliste Ridgeway og hans blodhunde, men også undgå alle de andre slavejægere, stikkere og lynchgrupper, der huserer på ruten. Den underjordiske jernbane er en hårrejsende spændende roman om en ung kvindes næsten dyriske vilje til at overleve, og samtidig er det en banebrydende litterær præstation i sin beskrivelse af den mest brutale periode i amerikansk historie. Vinder af The National Book Award 2016 Vinder af The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence Nomineret til The Kirkus Book Prize 2016 Årets bog 2016 i Publisher’s Weekly En New York Times-bestseller En Washington Post-, Barnes & Nobles-, Wall Street Journal- og USA Today-bestseller Præsident Obama’s Summer Read 2016 Oprah’s Bookclub Pick, august 2106 Colson Whitehead er en af USA’s mest anerkendte skønlitterære forfattere. Han har skrevet en række prisbelønnede bestsellerromaner, og i 2001 blev han første gang nomineret til Pulitzer-prisen for sin roman John Henry Days. Den underjordiske jernbane blev hans store internationale gennembrud, og romanen sikrede ham i 2016 både Pulitzer-prisen og National Book Award. Den er desuden belønnet med The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, Goodreads Choice Award for bedste historiske roman og The Tournament of Books. Colson Whitehead er født og opvokset i New York City og bor i dag på Manhattan.

In Colson Whiteheads ''De ondergrondse spoorweg'' is Cora slavin op een katoenplantage in Georgia. Haar helse leven staat op het punt om nog erger te worden: de wrede eigenaar heeft zijn oog op haar laten vallen. Ze besluit om te vluchten, en met hulp van de Ondergrondse Spoorweg (in Amerika het begrip voor het clandestiene netwerk van antislavernijactivisten) begint ze een lange, huiveringwekkende reis door de zuidelijke staten van Amerika richting het vrije Noorden, met de slavenpatrouille op haar hielen. ''De ondergrondse spoorweg'' is bekroond met de National Book Award. ''Fantastisch, aangrijpend.'' - Barack Obama ''Een overweldigende roman.'' – NRC Handelsblad

#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 • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century • A Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Book of the Last 30 Years 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.

Chronicles a young slave''s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys • “Whitehead proves a brilliant sociologist of the poker world.” —The Boston Globe In 2011, Grantland magazine gave bestselling novelist Colson Whitehead $10,000 to play at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. It was the assignment of a lifetime, except for one hitch—he’d never played in a casino tournament before. With just six weeks to train, our humble narrator took the Greyhound to Atlantic City to learn the ways of high-stakes Texas Hold’em. Poker culture, he discovered, is marked by joy, heartbreak, and grizzled veterans playing against teenage hotshots weaned on Internet gambling. Not to mention the not-to-be overlooked issue of coordinating Port Authority bus schedules with your kid’s drop-off and pickup at school. Finally arriving in Vegas for the multimillion-dollar tournament, Whitehead brilliantly details his progress, both literal and existential, through the event’s antes and turns, through its gritty moments of calculation, hope, and spectacle. Entertaining, ironic, and strangely profound, this epic search for meaning at the World Series of Poker is a sure bet. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto!

Desde que una epidemia azotó el planeta, en el mundo quedan dos tipos de personas: los sanos y los infectados; los vivos y los no-muertos. Manhattan ha sido acordonada y el gobierno provisional ha exterminado a casi todos los infectados; la situación parece bajo control. Pero una sorpresa aguarda entre las desiertas calles de la Zona Uno, y Mark Spitz y sus compañeros de la brigada de limpieza están a punto de descubrirla... Revisitando las novelas de zombis y con una vuelta de tuerca más, Colson Whitehead nos ofrece una historia estremecedora que te persigue de forma implacable hasta el final. Una última advertencia: Zona Uno no se parece a nada de lo que hayas leído hasta ahora.

This debut novel by the two time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys wowed critics and readers everywhere and marked the debut of an important American writer. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years It is a time of calamity in a major metropolitan city''s Department of Elevator Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson, the first black female elevator inspector in the history of the department, is at the center of it. There are two warring factions within the department: the Empiricists, who work by the book and dutifully check for striations on the winch cable and such; and the Intuitionists, who are simply able to enter the elevator cab in question, meditate, and intuit any defects. Lila Mae is an Intuitionist and, it just so happens, has the highest accuracy rate in the entire department. But when an elevator in a new city building goes into total freefall on Lila Mae''s watch, chaos ensues. It''s an election year in the Elevator Guild, and the good-old-boy Empiricists would love nothing more than to assign the blame to an Intuitionist. But Lila Mae is never wrong. The sudden appearance of excerpts from the lost notebooks of Intuitionism''s founder, James Fulton, has also caused quite a stir. The notebooks describe Fulton''s work on the "black box," a perfect elevator that could reinvent the city as radically as the first passenger elevator did when patented by Elisha Otis in the nineteenth century. When Lila Mae goes underground to investigate the crash, she becomes involved in the search for the portions of the notebooks that are still missing and uncovers a secret that will change her life forever.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys: A pandemic has devastated the planet, sorting humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead. • "One of the best books of the year." —Esquire After the worst of the plague is over, armed forces stationed in Chinatown’s Fort Wonton have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One. Mark Spitz is a member of one of the three-person civilian sweeper units tasked with clearing lower Manhattan of the remaining feral zombies. Zone One unfolds over three surreal days in which Spitz is occupied with the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder (PASD), and the impossible task of coming to terms with a fallen world. And then things start to go terribly wrong… At once a chilling horror story and a literary novel by a contemporary master, Zone One is a dazzling portrait of modern civilization in all its wretched, shambling glory.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALIST • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys: a hilarious and supremely original novel set in the Hamptons in the 1980s, "a tenderhearted coming-of-age story fused with a sharp look at the intersections of race and class” (The New York Times). Benji Cooper is one of the few Black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. But every summer, Benji escapes to the Hamptons, to Sag Harbor, where a small community of Black professionals have built a world of their own. The summer of ’85 won’t be without its usual trials and tribulations, of course. There will be complicated new handshakes to fumble through and state-of-the-art profanity to master. Benji will be tested by contests big and small, by his misshapen haircut (which seems to have a will of its own), by the New Coke Tragedy, and by his secret Lite FM addiction. But maybe, just maybe, this summer might be one for the ages.

In a dazzlingly original work of nonfiction, the two time Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys recreates the exuberance, the chaos, the promise, and the heartbreak of New York. Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in—or spent time—in the greatest of American cities. A masterful evocation of the city that never sleeps, The Colossus of New York captures the city’s inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories. Colson Whitehead conveys with almost uncanny immediacy the feelings and thoughts of longtime residents and of newcomers who dream of making it their home; of those who have conquered its challenges; and of those who struggle against its cruelties. Whitehead’s style is as multilayered and multifarious as New York itself: Switching from third person, to first person, to second person, he weaves individual voices into a jazzy musical composition that perfectly reflects the way we experience the city. There is a funny, knowing riff on what it feels like to arrive in New York for the first time; a lyrical meditation on how the city is transformed by an unexpected rain shower; and a wry look at the ferocious battle that is commuting. The plaintive notes of the lonely and dispossessed resound in one passage, while another captures those magical moments when the city seems to be talking directly to you, inviting you to become one with its rhythms. The Colossus of New York is a remarkable portrait of life in the big city. Ambitious in scope, gemlike in its details, it is at once an unparalleled tribute to New York and the ideal introduction to one of the most exciting writers working today.

This "wickedly funny" (The Boston Globe) New York Times Notable Book from the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys is a brisk, comic tour de force about identity, history, and the adhesive bandage industry. The town of Winthrop has decided it needs a new name. The resident software millionaire wants to call it New Prospera; the mayor wants to return to the original choice of the founding black settlers; and the town’s aristocracy sees no reason to change the name at all. What they need, they realize, is a nomenclature consultant. And, it turns out, the consultant needs them. But in a culture overwhelmed by marketing, the name is everything and our hero’s efforts may result in not just a new name for the town but a new and subtler truth about it as well. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto!

From the bestselling, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a novel that is "funny and wise and sumptuously written" (Jonathan Franzen, The New York Times Book Review). Colson Whitehead’s triumphant novel is on one level a multifaceted retelling of the story of John Henry, the black steel-driver who died outracing a machine designed to replace him. On another level it’s the story of a disaffected, middle-aged black journalist on a mission to set a record for junketeering who attends the annual John Henry Days festival. It is also a high-velocity thrill ride through the tunnel where American legend gives way to American pop culture, replete with p. r. flacks, stamp collectors, blues men , and turn-of-the-century song pluggers. John Henry Days is an acrobatic, intellectually dazzling, and laugh-out-loud funny book that will be read and talked about for years to come. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto!

Nesta narrativa, Colson Whitehead põe em primeiro plano um meio de transporte vital, mas tão integrado à paisagem urbana que passa despercebido - os elevadores. O cenário é uma megalópole americana da década de 1960 (talvez Nova York, talvez Chicago). Ali, uma das instâncias mais altas de poder é justamente a Corporação dos Inspetores de Elevador, que se divide em duas facções - empiristas versus intuicionistas. Os primeiros realizam inspeções tradicionais, ou seja, aquelas realizadas com o conhecimento técnico apropriado. Os segundos, ao contrário, não precisam ver as engrenagens; são treinados para usar a sensibilidade, para captar todas as vibrações das máquinas pela intuição. Seu índice de acerto é dez por cento superior ao dos empiristas. A protagonista Lila Mae Watson é uma brilhante inspetora intuicionista negra. Ela não falha, e no entanto será responsabilizada por um acidente grave - um elevador se precipitará em queda livre num prédio que é a menina dos olhos do prefeito, a poucos dias da inauguração.