The Underground Railroad (Oprah's Book Club)
A Novel
By Colson Whitehead
Narrated by Bahni Turpin / 10 hours 43 minutes
The National Book Award Winner and #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates 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 a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
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“Get it, then get another copy for someone you know because you are definitely going to want to talk about it once you read that heart-stopping last page.”
Oprah Winfrey, Author of What I Know for Sure
“With exquisite prose, Colson digs deep into the troubled heart of America, exposing prejudice, tolerance, hatred, violence, and love as readers stop at each distinct station. Cora is a hero for the ages, and Whitehead is a writer who can guide us, like a station master, into the light. This is a fantastic novel.”
William Carl, Wellesley Books, Wellesley, MA
Reviews
“Turpin’s performance of this intense, imaginative, and grim odyssey makes it feel disturbingly real. ”
Booklist
“Bahni Turpin's narration is near perfection as she captures the emotional heart of this audiobook. Her sensitive pacing allows listeners to absorb the impact of intense scenes and tugs them along when the plot races.”
AudioFile
“Audiobook fans will certainly not be disappointed by versatile actor Turpin’s performance of Whitehead’s powerful historical novel, which tells the story of Cora, a teenage slave girl who lives on a cotton plantation in 1850s Georgia.”
Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Colson Whitehead is the New York Times bestselling author of The Noble Hustle, Zone One, Sag Harbor, The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, Apex Hides the Hurt, and one collection of essays, The Colossus of New York. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and a recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City.
Related Reading
Read Oprah’s interview with Colson Whitehead
Listen to Colson Whitehead on NPR’s Fresh Air
Colson Whitehead on His Spectacular New Novel, The Underground Railroad
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| Author | Colson Whitehead |
| Narrator | Bahni Turpin |
| ISBN | 9781524736262 |
| Length | 10 hours 43 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group |
| Publication Date | August 2, 2016 |
| Edition | Unabridged |
| Libro.fm Rank | #260 Overall |
| Genre Rank | #159 in Fiction & Literature |
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