Colson Whitehead (11/6/1969) is an American novelist. He is the author of seven novels, including his debut work, The Intuitionist, and The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  His most recent novel is The Nickel Boys. Michael S. Jackson writes, “The Nickel Boys follows two boys struggling through their sentences at an abusive reform school under the specter of segregation in the 1960s. The school was based on the real Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida, notorious for its mental, physical and sexual abuses, which was closed in 2011; dozens of bodies have been found buried on the school’s grounds.” In conjunction with the publication of The Nickel Boys, Whitehead was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine for the July 8, 2019 edition, alongside the strap-line “America’s Storyteller.”He also received the New York State Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Fiction Writers and has the title of New York State Author.