The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad

by Whitehead, Colson

Format

Paperback $11.49
Condition Bargain Brand-new publisher overstock that may have a remainder mark and minor wear from handling. Bargain
$11.49

List price: $28.99 List Price This is the manufacturer's recommended retail price. Please note older versions of books may not reflect the most current list price due to price adjustments made on newer printings. We strive to keep the website's list price updated to match the current MSRP, based on information from publishers.

About

Oprah's Book Club Pick

Cora is a young 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.
Additional Info

Topics and Key Themes

Narrative Tropes

  • Man vs. Society
  • Fish Out of Water
  • Speculative Reimagining
  • Pursuit and Flight
  • Character Study

Key Themes

  • Freedom as a Moving Target β€” each refuge Cora reaches offers new dangers dressed as salvation.
  • America's Original Sin β€” slavery depicted not as backdrop but as a living, pursuing force.
  • Self-Determination vs. Systemic Oppression β€” Cora fights to own her identity in a world that denies her humanity.
  • Memory and Survival β€” how trauma is carried, suppressed, and inherited across generations.
  • The Myth of Progress β€” each state Cora enters exposes a different, equally sinister face of racism.

About the Author

Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Underground Railroad, which in 2016 won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and the National Book Award and was named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, as well as The Noble Hustle, Zone One, Sag Harbor, The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, Apex Hides the Hurt, and The Colossus of New York. He is also a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a recipient of the MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships. He lives in New York City.