The Secret Railroad

Author Name: Colson Whitehead

Cora, a slave working on a cotton plantation during the period before the American Civil War in the eighteenth century. Slaves lived a hellish life at that time, but Cora found her life even more difficult; she was not only ostracized by whites, but also by her African brothers. Her mother had escaped from the plantation without being recaptured by the slave hunters, a dream for every slave without exception. Her grandmother had been the first to reach the plantation, arriving on a slave ship that had sailed from the Black Continent. Caesar, the slave they had hunted in Virginia, joins the plantation and is impressed by Cora. ​​He tells her about the Secret Railroad: underground escape routes whose origins are unknown, as it is unknown who dug them and who sought to bring the primitive locomotives to them. The white enemies have no way to reach them or where they are located, as the entrances are hidden and camouflaged. However, Caesar, who offers Cora escape to the North, where free blacks live, knows someone who can show him one of the entrances, and Cora's life takes a path she never imagined. In the novel, Whitehead addresses the issue of slavery, black-on-black oppression, and the American deception regarding the equality of citizens since the Declaration of Independence. Despite his fragmented narrative writing, which resembles sequential shots and forces the reader to constantly reread, rather than follow the narrative to the end, his style leaves the desired effect on the reader's soul and imagination: life is not a smooth, flowing river, but rather filled with soot, dust, and swamps, and the steps of escape are either to the gallows or the sun.








We learn with Thiong'o the value of knowledge, which colonialism withheld from the Kenyan people. He tells us about the emergence of formal education and independent, rebellious schools in Kenya. His dream, which he promised his mother he would spare no effort to achieve, was to learn. But how can a child cling to his dream amidst the shadows of World War II and his family crises? This childhood memoir serves as Thiong'o's testimony in defense of his right to dream, at least, despite all the difficulties, and of his mother's significant role in his life, which has led him to become one of Africa's greatest writers worldwide.