 First edition cover | |
| Author | Colson Whitehead |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction, Novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday (HB) & Anchor Books (PB) |
Publication date | May 15, 2001 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 400 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | 0-385-49819-5 |
| Preceded by | The Intuitionist |
| Followed by | The Colossus of New York |
John Henry Days is a 2001 novel by American author Colson Whitehead. This is his second full-length work.
Building the railways that made America, John Henry died with a hammer in his hand moments after competing against a steam drill in a battle of endurance. The story of his death made him a legend. Over a century later, freelance journalist J. Sutter is sent to West Virginia to cover the launch of a new postage stamp at the first John Henry Days festival.
Maya Jaggi, writing for The Guardian , praised John Henry Days, writing that it is "propelled by the quality of the writing and observation which, together with his serious intent, elevate it above frothier social satire." [1] Writing in The New York Times , novelist Jonathan Franzen likened the novel to Ulysses and Moby-Dick in its "encyclopedic aspirations", but added: "John Henry Days is funny and wise and sumptuously written, but it's only rarely a page turner." [2]
| Year | Award | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Pulitzer Prize for Fiction | Shortlist | [3] |
| 2002 | Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award | Honor book | [4] |
| 2002 | National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction | Shortlist | |
| 2002 | Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction | Finalist | [5] |
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, short stories and essays, and a university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which Time magazine cited as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The Los Angeles Times's David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years".
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American novelist and short story writer. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: The Virgin Suicides (1993), Middlesex (2002), and The Marriage Plot (2011). The Virgin Suicides served as the basis of a feature film, while Middlesex received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in addition to being a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, and France's Prix Médicis.
Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections, a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". In 2021, Franzen published the first in a projected trilogy, Crossroads, which Becca Rothfeld of The Atlantic called "[his] best book yet."
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2001.
The play – for which Briony had designed the posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper – was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss breakfast and lunch.
Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer, about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work The Intuitionist and The Underground Railroad (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 non-fiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Genius Grant.
Jonathan Safran Foer is an American novelist. He is known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated (2002), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005), Here I Am (2016), and for his non-fiction works Eating Animals (2009) and We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast (2019). He teaches creative writing at New York University.
Jane Smiley is an American novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel A Thousand Acres (1991).
Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1991 and retired in the spring of 2016.
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The Daily Northwestern is the student newspaper at Northwestern University which is published in print on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and online daily during the academic year. Founded in 1881, and printed in Evanston, Illinois, it is staffed primarily by undergraduates, many of whom are students at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and was fiction editor at Boston Review. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedom University, a volunteer organization in Georgia that provides post-secondary instruction to undocumented immigrants. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.
Tash Aw, whose full name is Aw Ta-Shi is a Malaysian writer living in London.
Adam Johnson is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles. He is also a professor of English at Stanford University with a focus on creative writing.
The Polished Hoe is a novel by Barbadian writer Austin Clarke, published by Thomas Allen Publishers in 2002. It was the winner of the 2002 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2003 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Canada and the Caribbean region and 2003 Trillium Book Award.
Jonathan Dee is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. His fifth novel, The Privileges, was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
George F. Kennan: An American Life is a nonfiction book about U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan by John Lewis Gaddis that won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography.
Diana Omo Evans FRSL is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. Evans has written three full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers, the Betty Trask Award and the deciBel Writer of the Year award. Her third novel Ordinary People was shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction and won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature.
Maya Jaggi is a British writer, literary critic, editor and cultural journalist. In the words of the Open University, from which Jaggi received an honorary doctorate in 2012, she "has had a transformative influence in the last 25 years in extending the map of international writing today". Jaggi has been a contributor to a wide range of publications including The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent, The Literary Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, New Statesman, Wasafiri, Index on Censorship, and Newsweek, and is particularly known for her profiles of writers, artists, film-makers, musicians and others. She is also a broadcaster and presenter on radio and television. Jaggi is the niece of actor and food writer Madhur Jaffrey.