Colson Whitehead is the author of The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, The Colossus of New York, Apex Hides the Hurt, Sag Harbor, Zone One and The Noble Hustle. His novel, The Underground Railroad, was an international and #1 New York Times Bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Carnegie Medal for Fiction, the 2017 Hurston/Wright Award for Fiction, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature. He was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, and included in the list of the “100 Most Influential People” compiled by Time. His most recent novel The Nickel Boys won the Kirkus Prize, The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, was a finalist for the 2020 Southern Book Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. It was a long-running New York Times bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize 2020 making him a two-time winner of the award. His novel, Harlem Shuffle, was published by Doubleday in 2021 and won the UN Thriller of the Year. The sequel, Crook Manifesto, was published by Doubleday in July 2023 and has been nominated for an Edgar Award. President Biden awarded him with a National Endowment for the Humanities Medal in 2023.
Photo: © Chris Close