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Madeline Whitehead

Oprah told everybody to read Colson Whitehead's latest book, The Underground Railroad, giving the best-selling MacArthur fellow a huge signal boost. Whitehead appreciated the nod, as does, I imagine, anyone who's taken the weekend to drop into the world of this book. The novel follows Cora, a third-generation slave, through a literal underground railroad as she attempts to escape from a life of bondage. The subtle powers working within Whitehead's language put to rest any question of the book's a-little-too-on-the-nose premise. By way of example: At times he uses a matter-of-fact, even brusk tone when describing people being traded for gunpowder and cases of rum, a deft deflation that emphasizes the quotidian nature of the slave trade's inhumanity. You'll want to hear him read from it because almost every other sentence falls into poetic rhythms and every other image burns into the mind. Whitehead has written a handful of books before this one, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist John Henry Days and the zombie thriller Zone One, but this is the one you want, at least for now. It's incredible. Plus, Whitehead will be joined in conversation with our very own Charles Mudede.