THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD – Colson Whitehead

When

14th August 2017    
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Where

The Golden Lion
25 King Street, St James, London, SW1Y 6QY
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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.


NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER FOR FICTION
2016 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE WINNER
KIRKUS PRIZE NOMINEE FOR FICTION (2016)
GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR HISTORICAL FICTION (2016)

“Whitehead is on a roll: the reviews have been sublime”
Guardian

“Luminous, furious, wildly inventive”
Observer

“Hands down one of the best, if not the best, book I’ve read this year”
Stylist (it`s got to be good if a hairdressing magazine likes it!)

“Dazzling”
New York Review of Books

“Magical Realism isn’t Science Fiction and neither is this The Underground Railroad”
~Your Glorious Leader ®, sciencefictionbookclub.org

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