Colson Whitehead

Whitehead was born in New York City on November 6, 1969, and grew up in Manhattan.^[4] He is one of four children of successful entrepreneur parents who owned an executive recruiting firm.^[5][6] As a child in Manhattan, Whitehead went by his first name Arch. He later switched to Chipp, before switching to Colson.^[7] He attended Trinity School in Manhattan and graduated from Harvard University in 1991. In college, he became friends with poet Kevin Young.^[8]

After graduating from college, Whitehead wrote for The Village Voice.^[9][10] While working at the Voice, he began drafting his first novels.

Early in his career, Whitehead lived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.^[11]

Whitehead has since produced 11 book-length works—nine novels and two nonfiction works, including a meditation on life in Manhattan in the style of E. B. White's famous 1949 essay Here Is New York. Whitehead's books are The Intuitionist (1999); John Henry Days (2001); The Colossus of New York (2003); Apex Hides the Hurt (2006); Sag Harbor (2009); 2011's Zone One, a New York Times bestseller; 2016's The Underground Railroad, which earned a National Book Award for Fiction; The Nickel Boys (2019);^[12][13] Harlem Shuffle (2021); and Crook Manifesto (2023). Esquire magazine named The Intuitionist the best first novel of the year, and GQ called it one of the "novels of the millennium".^[14] Novelist John Updike, reviewing The Intuitionist in The New Yorker, called Whitehead "ambitious", "scintillating", and "strikingly original", adding: "The young African-American writer to watch may well be a thirty-one-year-old Harvard graduate with the vivid name of Colson Whitehead."^[14]

The Intuitionist was nominated as the Common Novel at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The Common Novel nomination was part of a longtime tradition at the Institute that included such authors as Maya Angelou, Andre Dubus III, William Joseph Kennedy, and Anthony Swofford.

Whitehead's nonfiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Granta, and Harper's.^[15]

 

His nonfiction account of the 2011 World Series of Poker, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky & Death, was published by Doubleday in 2014.

Whitehead has taught at Princeton University, New York University, the University of Houston, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, and Wesleyan University. He has been a writer-in-residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond, and the University of Wyoming.

In 2015, he joined The New York Times Magazine to write a column on language.

The Underground Railroad was a selection of Oprah's Book Club 2.0, and was chosen by President Barack Obama as one of five books on his summer vacation reading list.^[16][17] In 2017, the novel was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction at the American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.^[18] Colson was honored with the 2017 Hurston/Wright Award for fiction presented by the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.^[19] The Underground Railroad won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Judges of the prize called the novel "a smart melding of realism and allegory that combines the violence of slavery and the drama of escape in a myth that speaks to contemporary America".^[20]

Whitehead's seventh novel, The Nickel Boys, was published in 2019. It was inspired by the story of the Dozier School for Boys in Florida, where children convicted of minor offenses suffered violent abuse.^[21] In conjunction with its publication, Whitehead was featured on the cover Time magazine's July 8, 2019, edition, alongside the strap-line "America's Storyteller".^[5] The Nickel Boys won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.^[22] Judges of the prize called the novel "a spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption".^[23] It was Whitehead's second win, making him the fourth writer to win the prize twice.^[24] In 2022, it was announced that Whitehead will executive produce the upcoming film adaptation of the same name.^[25]

Whitehead's eighth novel, Harlem Shuffle, was conceived and begun before he wrote The Nickel Boys. It is a work of crime fiction set in Harlem during the 1960s.^[5] Whitehead spent years writing it, and finished it in "bite-sized chunks" during the months he spent in quarantine in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[26] Harlem Shuffle was published by Doubleday on September 14, 2021.^[27] Crook Manifesto, Whitehead's ninth novel and a follow-up to Harlem Shuffle, was published on July 18, 2023.^[28]

Whitehead lives in Manhattan and also owns a home in Sag Harbor on Long Island. His wife, Julie Barer, is a literary agent. They have two children.^[29]

• —— (1999). The Intuitionist (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385492997.
• —— (2001). John Henry Days (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385498197.
• —— (2006). Apex Hides the Hurt (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385507950.
• —— (2009). Sag Harbor (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385527651.
• —— (2011). Zone One (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385528078.
• —— (2016). The Underground Railroad (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385542364.
• —— (2019). The Nickel Boys (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385537070.
• —— (2021). Harlem Shuffle (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385545136.
• —— (2023). Crook Manifesto (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385545150.

• —— (2003). The Colossus of New York (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385507943.
• —— (2014). The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky & Death (hardcover 1st ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 9780385537056.

• "Lost and Found". The New York Times Magazine. November 11, 2001.
• "A Psychotronic Childhood". The New Yorker. June 4, 2012.
• "Hard Times in the Uncanny Valley". Grantland. ESPN. August 24, 2012.
• "Occasional Dispatches from the Republic of Anhedonia". Grantland. ESPN. May 19, 2013.

• "Down in Front". Granta (86: Film). Summer 2004.
• "The Gangsters". The New Yorker. December 22, 2008.
• "The Match". The New Yorker. April 1, 2019.
• "The Theresa Job". The New Yorker. July 26, 2021.

• Elam, Michele. "Passing in the Post-Race Era: Danzy Senna, Philip Roth, and Colson Whitehead". African American Review, vol. 41, no. 4, 2007, pp. 749–68. JSTOR 25426988.
• Fain, Kimberly (2015). Colson Whitehead: The Postracial Voice of Contemporary Literature. Rowman & Littlefield.
• Kelly, Adam (October 2018). "Freedom to Struggle: The Ironies of Colson Whitehead". Open Library of the Humanities.
• Maus, Derek C. (2021). Understanding Colson Whitehead, revised and expanded edition. University of South Carolina Press.

 

Wikiquote has quotations related to Colson Whitehead.

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Colson Whitehead.

• Official website
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• "What's in a Name?" On Point (interview, 2006-09-04)
• "The books of my life | Colson Whitehead: 'When I read Invisible Man I thought maybe there’s room for a Black weirdo like me'", The Guardian, April 14, 2023.