W hitehead, C olson

Abstract

Colson Whitehead contributes an innovative voice not just to the field of African American literature, but also to American literature in general. He offers a vision of the African American and American experiences that reflects the modern preoccupations with technology and identity, using unconventional plots, settings, and themes to construct narratives that challenge the reader's notions of the relationship between the past and future. Despite the fact that Whitehead's desire to become a writer stemmed from his reading a novel by the horror author Stephen King when Whitehead was young, Colson Whitehead is most notably an heir to the tradition of African American literature that critiques the nature of race relations in the United States. While White‐head's name fits naturally among such African American authors as Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright, he is also in the same company as such contemporary white authors as Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon, writers who offer stinging commentaries on contemporary American culture. In addition to contributing essays and reviews to the New York Times Book Review, Granta , and Harper s , Colson Whitehead has published three novels and one work of non‐fiction. He also wrote the introduction to Get Your War On by David Rees, a collection of cartoons criticizing the United States war on terrorism that was published in 2002.