Winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Before the American Civil War, there was a network of secret routes and safe houses used to funnel African-American slaves out of slave states and into free states, or even to Canada. This was called the Underground Railroad. Colson Whitehead’s novel is rewrites history, turning a metaphorical underground railroad into a literal and actual slave-run subway. Loaded with tension as it tells the story of two slaves making a desperate break for freedom, on the run from a terrifying slave-catcher, it also manages to be a remarkably powerful, sensitive and moving novel. It’s very clear why Underground Railroad has garnered the acclaim it has.
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