Whitehead was born in New York City on November 6, 1969 and is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work The intuitionist and The Underground Railroad in 2016, for which he won the 2016 national book award for fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction; he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction again in 2020 for The Nickel boys. He has also published two books of nonfiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Genius Grant. After graduating from college, he wrote for the Village Voice. While working at the Voice, he began drafting his first novel. Whitehead’s seventh novel, The Nickel Boys was inspired by the real life story of the Dozier school for Boys (part of the Florida Department of juvenile justice) in Florida where children convicted of minor offenses suffered horrific abuse and many were killed. Many of the murders are still being investigated at the time of this broadcast and it is believed that over 100 bodies were buried on the school grounds. Three times as many black as white students died and were buried at this school.