Summary : the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The prize-winning author Colson Whitehead has produced a striking book that tackles about the unjustified treatment suffered by the African Americans in the 19th century. The novel focuses on two people that planned their escape through the brutalities they faced from an early age. Cora is a third generation slave on a plantation in Georgia. They have been exposed to unimaginable cruelties even on their younger days. Her mother, Mabel, is the first person who tried to escape the cruelty on the plantation and she succeeded. Soon becoming an outcast on the plantation, Cora is abandoned to the house of the rejects on the property, where her only possession is a small patch of garden that her grandmother tended before her. When Caesar, a new slave arrives, he convinces Cora to run away with him. The two of them head for the Underground Railroad which in this ingenious version of history is a real railroad that rumbles below the ground of the ignorant whites above. The train takes the two of them to South Carolina, where their struggles for freedom and the chance to define their own lives begin. As Cora is forced to flee the capture of the ruthless slave catcher Ridgeway, she takes the train through different places in America. Each leg in her journey reveals a different world to her, filled with new challenges that must be overcome before she can find true freedom. The novel focuses on the story of two slaves in Georgia who plan to escape from their plantation by collaborating with the Underground Railroad and the challenges they encounter, as well as their respective fates.