“As time went on, we learned to arm ourselves in our different ways. Some of us with real guns, some of us with more ephemeral weapons, an idea or improbable plan or some sort of formulation about how best to move through the world. An idea that will let us be. Protect us and keep us safe. But a weapon nonetheless.”

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.