The Underground Railroad

Cora is held in slavery on a Georgia plantation and is shunned even by those enslaved alongside her; her grandmother was taken from Africa, and her mother fled when Cora was small. Caesar, newly brought from Virginia, speaks to her of the Underground Railroad, and the two resolve to escape. In this telling the railroad is literal, a system of tunnels and rails beneath the South, run by engineers and conductors. Its first station is a South Carolina that looks like refuge until the intentions of its white rulers toward Black people come out, and Cora rides on through North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana, each a different face of America, with the slave catcher Ridgeway hunting her.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical, Speculative (assigned by AI)

Set in

United States, 19th century

First published

2016

Author's age

47 when first published

ISBN

9780385542364 (Doubleday, United States)

9780708898376 (Fleet, United Kingdom)

9780708898406 (Fleet, United Kingdom)

9780345804327 (Vintage, United States)

9780349726809 (Fleet, United Kingdom)

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