Underground Railroad

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017, the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2017 and the National Book Award 2016, The Underground Railroad is a powerful and imaginative reworking of American history.
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia, where life is brutal and unforgiving. Isolated even among her fellow slaves, she faces an increasingly dangerous future. When Caesar, a slave newly arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they make the desperate decision to escape north.
In Whitehead’s reimagining, the Underground Railroad is not just a network of secret routes and safe houses, but a real underground railway carrying fugitives toward freedom. As Cora journeys from state to state, she encounters different forms of oppression, danger and hope, while the relentless slave catcher Ridgeway pursues her at every turn.
Through Cora’s harrowing journey, the novel explores the horrors of slavery and the enduring legacy of racism in America, creating a deeply moving and unforgettable story of survival, freedom and resilience.