Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Common Book 2018
The Underground Railroad By Aselya Sposato ’21 Otterbein University’s Common Book program welcomed Pulitzer Prizewinning author Colson Whitehead to campus on Oct. 23. Nearly all seats in Fritsche Theatre at Cowan Hall were filled with students who eagerly awaited the annual Common Book Convocation, where Whitehead spoke about his career as a writer and his latest novel and 2018 Common Book, The Underground Railroad. In The Underground Railroad, Whitehead tells the story of a young female protagonist combating slavery in a fictional America. He examines the concept of female enslavement and the unique challenges women are faced with in his modern re-telling of American history. “As a kid, I always thought the Underground Railroad was a subterranean system,” said Whitehead. “These words are so evocative that I wanted to explore that and make it live that way on page. If I told a straightforward story, I couldn’t have re-cast history and made a different conversation by moving things around.” The Underground Railroad went on to become a New York Times bestseller, a National Book Award winner, and a Pulitzer Prize winner. His other works have appeared in publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine and Harper’s. Whitehead’s lecture also recounted his personal struggles and his journey to pursue a career as a novelist. Despite facing pressure to seek a traditional career path, he began writing in high
school and found a job in news writing after graduating from college. In the last 20 years, Whitehead has published eight books and taught at multiple universities across the country, including Columbia University and Princeton University. “No matter what you do, someone else smarter than you has already done it,” said Whitehead. “But that doesn’t matter. You just have to trust in your own narrative and point of view to invigorate your process and spark your successes.” The convocation sparked questions from students about today’s social climate, including questions regarding racism and diversity. Both topics are affiliated with Otterbein’s commitment to equity and inclusion. Through campus resources like the African American Student Union and Office of Social Justice and Activism, the university is dedicated to being available to students to talk about these issues. For more information about Colson Whitehead, visit colsonwhitehead.com. For more information about the Common Book program, visit otterbein.libguides. com/CommonBookOU.
Colson Whitehead signs the framed copy of his book and his photo to join the other 23 Common Books on the walls of the Courtright Memorial Libray.
“You just have to trust in your own narrative and point of view to invigorate your process and spark your successes.”
O tte r b e in To w e r s | Winter 2018 |
7