Profile of Colson Whitehead

Over the last decade, Colson Whitehead has become one of America's pre-eminent novelists, winning the Pulitzer prize twice for his novels The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys. The Observer has published a long profile of him, in which he discusses his novels and the current state of politics in the United States. 

As we speak, the uncertainty of lockdown has been fractured by the protests that have erupted in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. It is, I say, an interesting time to be speaking to a novelist whose most recent narratives explore America’s racist history and its long shadow. 

“Well, if you choose to write about institutionalised racism and our capacity for evil,” he says, “You could write about 1850 or 1963 or 2020 and it all applies unfortunately. It’s ongoing and it will be ongoing for many years.” He does not sound that hopeful about change. “Well, as I’ve been writing about it over the last couple of years, I’ve also been living with these periodic conversations about police brutality. They get very loud, and then grow quiet again, and then become louder when something else happens. In a way, that’s been my whole life, but especially over the last couple of years. So, just on a personal level, to have it become this immediate and to see it now affecting my kids’ lives in a different way has been exhausting.”