“Anytime an African-American writes an unconventional novel, the writer gets compared to Ellison. But that's O.K. I am working in the African-American literary tradition. That's my aim and what I see as my mission.”

American novelist

Colson Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of ten novels and two books of nonfiction, and has won major literary prizes for his work. Born Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead, he emerged with his 1999 debut novel, The Intuitionist. His later novels include The Underground Railroad, which won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and The Nickel Boys, which won the Pulitzer Prize again in 2020. That second Pulitzer placed him among a small group of writers to have received the award twice. He also received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002.