A versatile and frequently provocative prose craftsman, Colson Whitehead is an author noteworthy both for the acclaim his books have earned and for the pointed lack of repetition in his body of work. He has noted that he sees each of his books as “an antidote to the one [that] came before” and that this approach helps “keep the work challenging” (Shukla). Among his first eight books, one finds a “hard-boiled” detective novel revolving around elevator inspectors, a sprawling metamythic novel based on the legend of John Henry, an interlinked series of lyrical essays about contemporary New York, a multi-vectored satire involving a brand of shoddy adhesive bandages, a coming-of-age story set in an African-American beach community circa 1985, a novel set in the aftermath of a…
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Citation: Maus, Derek C.. "Whitehead, Colson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 April 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13868, accessed 24 April 2024.]
