What do B. Tarkington, W. Faulkner, J. Updike and C. Whitehead have in common, besides being American writers?
Do not ask Chat GPT or Google, just read along a bit further, OK?
Photo by Laurin Steffens on Unsplash
They all won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Twice.
I have been thinking for years about a long term plan by which I would be reading all of Updike’s novels in the same order as they were written.
But I never started.
So many reasons why not, most of them ludicrous.
Thanks to a present from my girlfriend, though, I got to know C. Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and was mesmerized.
That happened towards the end of 2024 – if I am not mistaken – and yet it took me until the end of this summer to read another of his novels, The Nickel Boys.
Fate wants that these two works are those who earned him the two Pulitzers.
As soon as I turned the last page of The Nickel Boys, I straight away reserved a copy of Harlem Shuffle at the University Library in Amsterdam – long live city libraries!
This book is the first part of a trilogy Whitehead started publishing right after the release of The Nickel Boys.
For a non American citizen, non native English speaker like me, these books present some challenges:
- Though not necessarily difficult in terms of syntax, they nevertheless present a rich vocabulary resonating with cultural references I am not familiar with;
- The narration can at moments be difficult, as it switches back and forth in time and in perspective;
- Both novels, though fictional, tell stories of unspeakable racist violence and exploitation that are based on true events. These stories stick into your mind for longer than you’d think.
In this respect, C. Whitehead is such a compelling read in these times.
Exhausted as we all are from the never-ending stream of terrible news coming from the West, the East and within (Europe), reading novels like this force us, the readers, to think, gain perspective and decisively decline the offer – that multiple media outlets suggest – to go along a one-fits-for-all narrative or explanation.
Photo is courtesy of Les Haines
History matters, Change is painful, Racism exists, Heal happens first and only when all parties involved do feel that way.
I wonder if and where such fictional writers exist in Europe too – they probably do.
I already say thanks, if you after reading this reach out and suggest names of fictional writers born on this side of the pond who are in a way or another handling topics like colonial past, slavery, racism, etc.
P.S. I only realized today that Columbia University manages the Pulitzer prizes. I am wondering if the new political climate in the US will also impact the way winners will be selected.
P.P.S. Last night, after I turned the last page on the Nickel Boys, I felt I had to read something else and picked up a short story from the Interpreter of Maladies, by J. Lahiri. It was quite the coincidence, as I learnt while writing this that the collection of short stories won Lahiri that same prize back in 2000. I had forgotten about it.
P.P.S. I had never heard of B. Tarkington in my life.
