Colson Whitehead, a two-time Pulitzer prize winning writer, was born on Nov. 6, 1969 in Manhattan.
The third of four siblings, Whitehead enjoyed reading from an early age, especially comics and science fiction. He attended Trinity School, a private school in Manhattan and went on to attend Harvard University.
After graduating from college in 1991, Colson found a job at the Village Voice, where he wrote reviews of books, television and music. Around 1993, he moved to Brooklyn and lived in the borough for about 11 years, first in an apartment in Fort Greene and later in Clinton Hill and Prospect Lefferts Gardens.
At the beginning of his writing career, he once told a writer from Brooklyn Magazine that he spent most of his time writing in his apartment in Fort Greene.
His first novel was The Intuitionist (1999), followed by John Henry Days (2001). The Colossus of New York (2003) is a collection of essays about the city, including the challenges, struggles and cruelties of the city, as well as its beauty and charm. The book came out when gentrification had swept over almost every corner of Manhattan and was now making huge marks in the outerboroughs.
In 2004, he lamented over the gentrification of Fort Greene in a New York Magazine article: “Soon enough, you’ll be able to go to Amazon and order a starter kit for these transformations: Gentrification in a Box. The contents include: one economically depressed neighborhood, a bargain compared with other places in the city; one wave of artists looking for a place to hang their easels and sleeping bags; one handful of the young and priced-out; one dozen lucky landowners and real-estate speculators rolling dice; one gaggle of new businesses looking for a foothold. If you can afford it, the Deluxe Edition comes with a branch of Corcoran, for that extra-fine, glossy finish.”
Whitehead then wrote Apex Hides the Hurt (2006) and Sag Harbor (2009), a novel based on his childhood summers in Long Island, and Zone One (2011), about a post-apocalyptic New York City.
Whitehead won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Fiction with The Underground Railroad (2016), a novel about Cora, a young slave, who makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
His success continued with The Nickel Boys (2019), set in 1960s Florida. The story follows two Black teenagers who are sent to a juvenile reform school where they are physically and emotionally abused by administrators and teachers. The acclaimed work won several awards, most notably a Pulitzer and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. The novel was turned into a film in 2024.
Lately, Whitehead published two books as part of his Harlem Trilogy, Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto.
Throughout his illustrious literary career, Whitehead has taught at many universities, including at Brooklyn College, Hunter College, New York University and Princeton University, among others.
Whitehead, a native New Yorker who started his literary career in Brooklyn, said he can’t help but remember how each of his homes affected his work.
“The places where I wrote are very important, they’re beacons of hope around the city—I’ve lived in five or six different neighborhoods, five different apartments in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, and I can’t walk by them without saying, ‘Oh, that’s where I wrote half of The Intuitionist, that’s where I wrote John Henry Days,” he told Brooklyn Magazine in 2012.
Colson Whitehead, we honor your literary legacy (that is still forming), and your ability to inform and delight readers from all around the world.
Sources: Colsonwhitehead.com, Britannica, New York Magazine, Brooklyn Magazine.
February is Black History Month! Every day this month, BK Reader will profile one Black History Maker born or raised in Brooklyn. There are countless Brooklynites— past and present— who have contributed to America's fabric as pioneers or leaders in art, entertainment, sports, science and government. This month, we present to you 28! Click here to see all of the profiles.
