The first writer to win back-to-back Pulitzer Prizes for consecutive works of fiction, acclaimed American author Colson Whitehead comes to the Center for the Arts on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 7:30 p.m.
From the ground-shifting “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys” to the razor-sharp “Harlem Shuffle,” “Crook Manifesto,” and “Cool Machine,” Whitehead has established himself as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary literature. His books are drenched in character, culture, and incisive reflections on American life.
Warm, candid, and often very funny, Whitehead brings honesty and wit to conversations about writing, history, and the power of storytelling to deepen understanding of the human experience. He shares anecdotes about his diverse bibliography, irreverent “Rules for Writing,” and unique approach to every novel.
A the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper’s, and Granta bestselling author of 11 works of fiction and nonfiction, Whitehead won the 2016 National Book Award and 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “The Underground Railroad,” which was also an Oprah’s Book Club selection. The work chronicles a young enslaved woman’s journey during a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. The novel offers a shattering meditation on the United States’ complicated political and racial history.
Winfrey said, “From the first page of Colson Whitehead’s extraordinary novel ‘The Underground Railroad,’ I knew I was reading something ground-shifting.”
Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys” won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making him only the fourth writer to win two Pulitzers in the fiction category. The book also won the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
Published in 2019, “The Nickel Boys” explores life under Jim Crow from the perspective of two boys in one of the country’s most notorious real-life juvenile correction institutions, the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in the Florida panhandle. The meticulously researched novel was an instant New York Times bestseller and was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and adapted into a critically acclaimed film.
Whitehead’s latest bestselling novels, “Harlem Shuffle,” “Crook Manifesto,” and the just-released “Cool Machine,” form a trilogy set on the streets of New York City in the 1960s and 1970s. The stories offer hilarious morality plays, incisive commentary on race and power, and ultimately read as a love letter to Harlem.
Several of Whitehead’s other novels have been adapted for television and film, including producer Barry Jenkins’ “The Underground Railroad” limited series on Amazon and the HBO Max series based on “Sag Harbor.”
Time magazine named Whitehead one of the “100 Most Influential People” in 2017. He was named New York’s 11th State Author in 2018, received the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2020, and received the National Humanities Medal from President Biden in 2021.
Whitehead is also the author of “The Intuitionist,” “John Henry Days,” “The Colossus of New York,” “Apex Hides the Hurt,” “Sag Harbor,” “Zone One,” and “The Noble Hustle.” His reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, “The New Yorker,” “New York Magazine,” “Harper’s,” and “Granta,” among other publications.
His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Whiting Writers Award, Dos Passos Prize, Carnegie Medal for Fiction, Kirkus Prize, and Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
He has taught at the University of Houston, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, New York University, Princeton University, and Wesleyan University, and has been a writer-in-residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond, and the University of Wyoming.
The event is co-sponsored by the Academy of Transdisciplinary Studies, Africana Studies, Black Cultural Center, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Department of English Visiting Writers Series, Department of Sociology, and University Libraries.
Tickets are $25 for general audience and $10 for students and youth 18 and under. Tickets can be purchased online; at the Center for the Arts box office, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; or by calling 540-231-5300 during box office hours.
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