Sublime roman [...] Harlem Shuffle est un page turner comme Colson Whitehead sait si bien en faire. Livres HebdoPetites arnaques, embrouilles et lutte des classes... La fresque irrésistible du Harlem des années 1960.Époux aimant, père de famille attentionné et fils d'un homme de main lié à la pègre locale, Ray Carney, vendeur de meubles et d'électroménager à New York sur la 125e Rue, « n'est pas un voyou, tout juste un peu filou ». Jusqu'à ce que son cousin lui propose de cambrioler le célèbre Hôtel Theresa, surnommé le Waldorf de Harlem...Chink Montague, habile à manier le coupe-chou, Pepper, vétéran de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Miami Joe, gangster tout de violet vêtu, et autres flics véreux ou pornographes pyromanes composent le paysage de ce roman féroce et drôle. Mais son personnage principal est Harlem, haut lieu de la lutte pour les droits civiques, où la mort d'un adolescent noir, abattu par un policier blanc, déclencha en 1964 des émeutes préfigurant celles qui ont eu lieu à la mort de George Floyd.Avec Harlem Shuffle, qui revendique l'héritage de Chester Himes et Donald Westlake, Colson Whitehead se réinvente une fois encore en détournant les codes du roman noir. C'est vivant, bruyant, caracolant. C'est Whitehead. L'Obs Un réjouissant tourbillon [...] Une belle leçon d'histoire et d'humanité en mode thriller. Les Echos
Dans la Floride ségrégationniste des années 1960, le jeune Elwood Curtis prend très à coeur le message de paix de Martin Luther King. Prêt à intégrer l'université, il voit s'évanouir ses rêves d'avenir lorsque, à la suite d'une erreur judiciaire, on l'envoie à la Nickel Academy, une maison de correction où les pensionnaires sont soumis aux pires sévices. Elwood se lie toutefois d'amitié avec Turner, en qui il trouve un allié précieux. Mais l'idéalisme de l'un et le scepticisme de l'autre auront des conséquences déchirantes.
Couronné en 2017 par le prix Pulitzer pour Underground Railroad puis en 2020 pour Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead est l'un des rares romanciers distingués à deux reprises par cette prestigieuse récompense. S'inspirant de faits réels, il continue d'explorer l'inguérissable blessure raciale de l'Amérique et donne avec ce nouveau roman saisissant une sépulture littéraire à des centaines d'innocents, victimes de l'injustice du fait de leur couleur de peau.
Cora, seize ans, est esclave sur une plantation de coton dans la Géorgie d'avant la guerre de Sécession. Abandonnée par sa mère lorsqu'elle était enfant, elle survit tant bien que mal à la violence de sa condition. Lorsque Caesar, un esclave récemment arrivé de Virginie, lui propose de s'enfuir pour gagner avec lui les États libres du Nord, elle accepte.
De la Caroline du Sud à l'Indiana en passant par le Tennessee, Cora va vivre une incroyable odyssée. Traquée comme une bête par un impitoyable chasseur d'esclaves, elle fera tout pour conquérir sa liberté.
Exploration des fondements et de la mécanique du racisme, récit saisissant d'un combat poignant, Underground Railroad est une oeuvre politique aujourd'hui plus que jamais nécessaire.
Une fiction éblouissante. Nathalie Crom, Télérama.Un envoûtement. Colson Whitehead est entré dans la grande Histoire. Hubert Artus, Lire.Un romancier talentueux, une fresque impressionnante. Marianne Payot, L'Express.PRIX PULITZER.NATIONAL BOOK AWARD.Traduit de l'anglais (États-Unis) par Serge Chauvin.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017 WINNER OF THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER 2016 AMAZON.COM #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Whitehead is on a roll: the reviews have been sublime' Guardian 'Luminous, furious, wildly inventive' Observer 'Hands down one of the best, if not the best, book I've read this year' Stylist 'Dazzling' New York Review of Books Praised by Barack Obama and an Oprah Book Club Pick, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead won the National Book Award 2016 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North. In Whitehead's razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated box car pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But its placid surface masks an infernal scheme designed for its unknowing black inhabitants. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher sent to find Cora, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once the story of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shatteringly powerful meditation on history.
It's the early 1960s, and as the Civil Rights movement begins to reach segregated Tallahassee, the young, deeply principled Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to heart: he is «as good as anyone.» He is about to enroll in the local black college, but for a black boy in the Jim Crow South, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future.
Author of The Underground Railroad , Colson Whitehead, brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida. Praise for Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad: 'My book of the year by some distance . . . luminous, furious, wildly inventive' Observer 'An engrossing and harrowing novel' Sunday Times 'Tells one of the most compelling stories I have ever read' Guardian Whitehead is a superb storyteller . . . [he] brilliantly intertwines his allegory with history . . . writing at the peak of his game' Telegraph ________________________________________________________________________ Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clearsighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'. In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors. The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions. Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.
C'est l'été 1985, et comme chaque année depuis toujours Benji passe ses vacances à Sag Harbor, la station balnéaire de la bourgeoisie noire new-yorkaise. Mais cette fois, il se l'est juré, tout sera différent : il vient d'avoir quinze ans, il a même trouvé un premier boulot. Dorénavant, on l'appellera Ben, il changera de coiffure, ses copains le prendront au sérieux et les filles s'intéresseront enfin à lui. Malgré les fiascos, les tensions familiales, les aventures tragi-comiques, Benji s'obstine, bien décidé à montrer qu'il n'est plus un enfant. À force de l'attendre, la vraie vie finira bien par arriver. Et lui-même saura enfin qui il est.
Épopée parodique, faux roman de formation, Sag Harbor évoque la transition adolescente sous le regard rétrospectif d'un narrateur adulte, moins nostalgique qu'empreint d'une tendresse ironique. Mais il brosse aussi le portrait d'un adolescent pris entre deux âges, entre sa famille et ses pairs, entre conscience communautaire et appartenance sociale, entre le monde blanc et le monde noir. Souvent hilarant dans ses péripéties, ses changements de registre, ses métaphores incongrues, ce roman autobiographique est plus grave qu'il n'y paraît, car sous l'humour affleurent la difficulté à trouver sa place, la mélancolie du temps qui passe, la hantise de perdre ce qui fait la matière de nos vies. Colson Whitehead confirme une fois de plus la finesse lucide de sa vision, et fait passer le lecteur du rire à une émotion aussi profonde qu'inattendue.
La Dernière Nuit a eu lieu. Le fléau s'est répandu. Et dans le désert du monde d'après, les rares humains survivants luttent au jour le jour pour échapper aux zombs, ces morts-vivants cannibales et contagieux.
Pourtant, l'espoir commence à renaître. Dans la Zone 1, tout en bas de Manhattan, Mark Spitz et ses camarades ratisseurs éliminent les zombs traînards, première étape d'une patiente entreprise de reconquête. Mais la victoire est-elle seulement possible? Et pour reconstruire quel monde? Les personnages sont hantés par le passé, ou inversement refoulent le souvenir du cauchemar et des êtres perdus. Mais avant d'en être réduits à survivre, avaient-ils vraiment vécu? Mark Spitz se sent fait pour ce chaos absurde grâce à sa médiocrité même, et éprouve une étrange empathie pour les traînards. Et parfois, il lui vient à l'esprit la pensée interdite.
Colson Whitehead offre ici un authentique et palpitant conte de terreur, dont la noirceur et la tension permanente sont accentuées par un humour macabre et sardonique, et une invention verbale exceptionnelle, faite d'argot militaire, d'euphémismes officiels, d'images audacieuses pour rendre compte de l'impensable, donner une forme au pire. Mais ce tableau d'apocalypse, cette fable aux multiples interprétations est aussi une méditation sur ce qui fonde l'humanité. En vrai moraliste, Whitehead pose ici plus crûment que jamais la même question lancinante : que faisons-nous de nos vies? Et la démesure de l'horreur confère à cette représentation un lyrisme endeuillé, une gravité et une puissance proprement visionnaires.
A pandemic has devastated the planet, sorting humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead. Now the plague is receding, and Americans are busy rebuilding civilisation. Their top mission: the resettlement of Manhattan.
B>The official media tie-in edition of Colson Whitehead''s Pulitzer Prize-winning, National Book Award-winning, Oprah-anointed, #1 New York Times bestselling novel that explores America''s troubled racial past as only he can--soon to be a television series streaming on Amazon./b>br>br>Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood--where even greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Whitehead''s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman''s will to escape the horrors of bondage and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.
In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller The Underground Railroad , Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men." In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy. Based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.
#1 New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the National Book Award Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize One of the Best books of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR , The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, HuffPost, Esquire, Minneapolis Star Tribune Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood--where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage--and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.
In a dazzlingly original work of non-fiction, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Underground Railroad recreates the exuberance, the chaos, the promise, and the heartbreak of New York . Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in - or spent time - in the greatest of American cities. A masterful evocation of the city that never sleeps, The Colossus of New York captures the city's inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories. Colson Whitehead conveys with almost uncanny immediacy the feelings and thoughts of longtime residents and of newcomers who dream of making it their home; of those who have conquered its challenges; and of those who struggle against its cruelties. Whitehead's style is as multilayered and multifarious as New York itself: Switching from third person, to first person, to second person, he weaves individual voices into a jazzy musical composition that perfectly reflects the way we experience the city. There is a funny, knowing riff on what it feels like to arrive in New York for the first time; a lyrical meditation on how the city is transformed by an unexpected rain shower; and a wry look at the ferocious battle that is commuting. The plaintive notes of the lonely and dispossessed resound in one passage, while another captures those magical moments when the city seems to be talking directly to you, inviting you to become one with its rhythms. The Colossus of New York is a remarkable portrait of life in the big city. Ambitious in scope, gemlike in its details, it is at once an unparalleled tribute to New York and the ideal introduction to one of the most exciting writers working today.
Lila mae watson inspecte les ascenseurs de la grande ville, et elle ne passe pas inaperçue.
Parce qu'elle est femme, parce qu'elle est noire, parce qu'elle se fie à ses intuitions. et parce qu'elle ne se trompe jamais.
Alors, quand l'ascenseur d'un gratte-ciel s'écrase, en pleine campagne électorale, lila mae ne croit ni à l'erreur humaine ni à l'accident. fugitive et enquêtrice, elle s'aventure dans un monde de complots et de rivalités occultes. c'est ainsi qu'elle va découvrir le secret de fulton, le génial inventeur dont le dernier projet pourrait révolutionner non seulement la technique des ascenseurs, mais la société tout entière.
Sous des dehors de thriller philosophique au comique grinçant, colson whitehead développe l'utopie noire d'un univers parallèle. mais au fil de la lecture, ce monde imaginaire, cette époque indéterminée rappellent de façon troublante un passé américain récent, aux enjeux encore brûlants.
La puissance visionnaire, l'éclat d'un style novateur, la portée et l'ambition du propos font de ce premier roman l'une des révélations majeures de la jeune littérature américaine.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood--where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned--Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whiteheads ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesars first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the citys placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gullivers Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the preCivil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one womans ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
B>From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s./b>br>br>"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked . . ."br>br>To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver''s Row don''t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it''s still home. br>br>Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. br>br>Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn''t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn''t ask questions, either. br>br>Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa--the "Waldorf of Harlem"--and volunteers Ray''s services as the fence. The heist doesn''t go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. br>br>Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? br>br>Harlem Shuffle''s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It''s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. br>br>But mostly, it''s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.
"Si je suis ici, c'est parce que je suis né ici, à jamais perdu pour le reste du monde. » New-Yorkais archétypal, le romancier Colson Whitehead évoque ici sa métropole, en treize textes qui sont autant de poèmes en prose. Encadrés par une arrivée (à la gare routière de Port Authority) et un départ (de l'aéroport JFK), ces tableaux urbains s'attachent aussi bien à des lieux spécifiques (Central Park, Broadway, Coney Island, le pont de Brooklyn, Times Square ou... le métro) qu'à des moments privilégiés : le matin au réveil, un jour de pluie, la sortie des bureaux ou les soirées en ville du vendredi, lorsque dans les bars les citadins se réinventent une identité.
Car malgré l'anonymat, ce livre grouille de personnages, natifs ou visiteurs, individualisés et universels. Tous ces destins se croisent dans un concert de voix, et pourtant chacun procède d'une expérience commune : l'apprentissage de la Ville. Face à la cité la plus mythique du monde actuel, Whitehead parvient à dissiper les clichés, tantôt personnifiant les lieux, tantôt les traitant comme une abstraction picturale. Avec le souci, plus poignant encore depuis le 11 Septembre, de n'abandonner à l'oubli aucun objet, aucune vie. Multipliant les métaphores imprévisibles pour restituer le quotidien, il dessille notre regard et réinvente une ville fabuleuse, une Babel des temps modernes. Tout en sachant que ce projet héroïque est par nature interminable, et qu'on ne fait jamais le tour de New York. » Serge Chauvin.
The town of Winthrop has decided it needs a new name. The resident software millionaire wants to call it New Prospera; the mayor wants to return to the original choice of the founding black settlers; and the town';s aristocracy sees no reason to change the name at all. What they need, they realize, is a nomenclature consultant. And, it turns out, the consultant needs them. But in a culture overwhelmed by marketing, the name is everything and our hero';s efforts may result in not just a new name for the town but a new and subtler truth about it as well.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Colson Whiteheadyes'>#8217;s eagerly awaited and triumphantly acclaimed new novel is on one level a multifaceted retelling of the story of John Henry, the black steeldriver who died outracing a machine designed to replace him. On another level ityes'>#8217;s the story of a disaffected, middleaged black journalist on a mission to set a record for junketeering who attends the annual John Henry Days festival. It is also a highvelocity thrill ride through the tunnel where American legend gives way to American pop culture, replete with p. r. flacks, stamp collectors, blues men , and turnofthecentury song pluggers. John Henry Days is an acrobatic, intellectually dazzling, and laughoutloud funny book that will be read and talked about for years to come.From the Trade Paperback edition.
