The Underground Railroad

Resumen del libro

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North.

In Whitehead's razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated box car pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But its placid surface masks an infernal scheme designed for its unknowing black inhabitants.

And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher sent to find Cora, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world.

As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once the story of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shatteringly powerful meditation on history.

Biografía del autor

Colson Whitehead, escriptor i professor universitari, va néixer el 1969 i ha crescut a Manhattan. Autor de diverses obres de ficció i assaig, va revolucionar lx{0026} x02019;escena literària estatunidenca amb El ferrocarril subterrani (Periscopi, 2017), una obra amb la qual va obtenir els prestigiosos National Book Award 2016 i el premi Pulitzer dx{0026} x02019;obres de ficció 2017. Això el va catapultar directament a lx{0026} x02019;exclusiva llista dels autors que han guanyat alhora aquests dos premis i entre els quals hi ha noms com William Faulkner, John Updike i Annie Proulx. Lx{0026} x02019;any 2020 va obtenir el seu segon premi Pulitzer dx{0026} x02019;obres de ficció per Els nois de la Nickel (Periscopi, 2020), un èxit que abans dx{0026} x02019;ell només han aconseguit Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner i John Updike. El ritme de Harlem és la seva tercera obra traduïda al català.