The release date for the English version of 'The Underground Railroad' by
Colson Whitehead is Aug 2016. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
Cora works as a slave in Georgia on a cotton farm. All slaves have terrible lives, but Cora's is particularly terrible as she is an outsider even among her African peers and is about to become womanhood, which will bring much more suffering. Caesar, a new immigrant from Virginia, informs her about the Underground Railroad, and together they resolve to risk everything and go. Things do not go as planned, and Cora ends up killing a young white boy who is attempting to kidnap her. They are being pursued even if they reach a station and go north.
The Underground Railroad is more than just a metaphor in Whitehead's brilliant idea; engineers and conductors run a covert system of rails and tunnels under the Southern earth. In a city that at first glance seems to be a sanctuary, Cora and Caesar make their first stop in South Carolina. However, the calm exterior of the city conceals a cunning plan intended for its African American population. Even worse, the ruthless slave catcher Ridgeway is after them. Forced to escape once again, Cora sets out on a terrifying journey to find genuine freedom, state by state.
Similar to Gulliver's Travels' main character, Cora travels across both space and time on an adventure that takes her to many realms at every turn. Whitehead's tale deftly connects the violent importation of Africans to the unmet promises of the present, while beautifully recreating the specific terrors faced by Black Americans in the years leading up to the Civil War. The Underground Railroad is both a riveting, poignant reflection on our shared past and a dynamic adventure novel about a woman's fierce determination to escape the horrors of bondage.