1st Edition
Colson Whitehead Beyond the Novel Literary Authority, Authorial Performance, and Canonization
By Valentina López Liendo
Copyright 2027
224 Pages
by
Routledge
224 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Colson Whitehead Beyond the Novel: Literary Authority, Authorial Performance , and Canonization traces this author's remarkable trajectory from an acclaimed yet little-known writer to cultural force, examining the workings of contemporary literary authority.
By 2026, Whitehead is a household name: his novels have attained a large readership, are enshrined within the literary canon, and have... Read more
Introduction
SECTION I
Navigating the African American Writing Tradition
1 Situating a Literary Debut: The Intuitionist (1999)
2 Experimentation, History, and Plurality of Experience: John Henry Days (2001)
3 Ironic Displacement and Historical (Un)Certainties: Apex Hides the Hurt (2006)
SECTION II
Drawing from Genre
4 Coming of Age as an Open-Ended Process: Sag Harbor (2008)
5 Literary Zombies: Zone One (2011)
SECTION III
Prize-Winning Fiction and Cultural Visibility
6 Kaleidoscopic History: The Underground Railroad (2016)
7 Whitehead as “America’s Storyteller”: The Nickel Boys (2019)
Conclusion
SECTION I
Navigating the African American Writing Tradition
1 Situating a Literary Debut: The Intuitionist (1999)
2 Experimentation, History, and Plurality of Experience: John Henry Days (2001)
3 Ironic Displacement and Historical (Un)Certainties: Apex Hides the Hurt (2006)
SECTION II
Drawing from Genre
4 Coming of Age as an Open-Ended Process: Sag Harbor (2008)
5 Literary Zombies: Zone One (2011)
SECTION III
Prize-Winning Fiction and Cultural Visibility
6 Kaleidoscopic History: The Underground Railroad (2016)
7 Whitehead as “America’s Storyteller”: The Nickel Boys (2019)
Conclusion
Biography
Valentina López Liendo is a postdoctoral researcher in the Collaborative Research Center “Home(s)” (SFB 1671), funded by the German Research Foundation. She earned her PhD in American Literature at Heidelberg
University as part of the Research Training Group “Authority and Trust.” Valentina majored in English Studies and East Asian Studies at Heidelberg and Osaka Universities, before earning an MA in English and Transcultural
Studies. Her current project explores the moral topographies of belonging in contemporary US literature.
