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 - Colson Whitehead
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£8.99