>> Marie Arana: I'm Marie Arana, the Literary Director of the Library of Congress. A very warm welcome to you. And thank you for joining us in this latest edition of the "Hear You, Hear Me." series of National Book Festival presents. In "Hear You, Hear me," we speak frankly about the social issues that most concern us now in this uncommon summer of 2020. We want to bring you writers whose work and ideas speak directly to the issues of the day. It's hard to think of a time when words of wisdom and candor were more important than right now. We're very pleased to invite you into this forum. And perhaps hear some of your thoughts and ideas as we go. Today, we're very fortunate to be featuring a writer who has given us a wealth of deeply-considered, beautifully crafted, and consistently resonant works of fiction. Many of them ground-breaking, prize-winning works. He is Colson Whitehead, one of America's most accomplished novelists. Colson was born in Manhattan. Started his career in journalism. And in the last 20 years, since his 20's, has written nine superb, highly-acclaimed books. Among them, "The Intuitionist." "John Henry Days." "The Colossus of New York." "Apex Hides the Hurt." "The Underground Railroad." And most recently, "The Nickel Boys." Those last two have twice won the Pulitzer Prize. Two consecutive wins, a rare accomplishment in American letters. Colson will be interviewed by the 14th Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, who in fact, has exciting news she'll talk about with Colson in the course of this interview. Please welcome Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. >> Carla Hayden: Well thank you, Marie. And this week we made a wonderful announcement. The 2020 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction will be awarded to the brilliant Colson Whitehead. And I have to say that this is one of my favorite decisions that I get to make every year. And so, joining me this week for his first interview after we made the announcement is best-selling author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and now Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction honoree Colson Whitehead. Colson, how are you? And congratulations. >> Colson Whitehead: Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm great. Yeah, it's been a lovely day. You know, you guys told me a little while back. And I'm glad now I can finally email it to my mom and make it official. So, it's a very lovely day. >> Carla Hayden: And the last time we were together in person was at the Library Lions, New York Public. And you were being awarded then. Since then, things have been really going [inaudible] two critically-acclaimed books, of course. "The Underground Railroad," which I happen to have right here. Because the Library of Congress went in with, as you probably know, the National Museum of African-American History to purchase the first photo of Harriet Tubman that's been known. Colson, "Underground Railroad" was so realistic that one of my colleagues even thought that it existed, that there was the real thing. Have you had that reaction before? >> Colson Whitehead: I get that -- I get that a lot in Europe, which makes more sense. But it's sad when someone who's, you know, in their 60's and 70's, comes to a talk and asks me things like "Have there been any studies about the cave ins?" And I'm like, you know, "Sorry?" You know, [laughs]. So I'm glad that the mixture of the real and the fake works. But also, sad that we don't teach American history. We don't teach slavery as thoroughly and as deeply as we should, apparently. >> Carla Hayden: And you mentioned we don't teach history. We don't teach that history. Is that what you find? >> Colson Whitehead: Well, I think, you know, when I was a kid in elementary school in the '70s, and I think we did, you know, five minutes on slavery. And then 45 minutes on Abraham Lincoln. And then it was on to something else. We did five minutes on Jim Crow and segregation, 45 minutes on Martin Luther King. And then it's like, "Okay, let's keep going." So, you know, I think it's better, definitely, travelling to high schools and colleges. I know that some of the stuff in "Underground Railroad" is being taught. And the book is a good jumping off place to talk about slavery, of course. But also forced sterilizations and the 18th and 19th Century -- the way that the Nazis used Jim Crow laws as a model to persecute Jewish people in Europe. And so, I think we're -- we have come a little bit of way since the '70s. And I'm glad that our kids aren't left so much in the dark as it used to be. >> Carla Hayden: Now, with "Nickel Boys" the other one, it's because I had the background on Tallahassee, Florida and knew the area, is more recent historical, based in fact. And what about the research you did for that one? Because it's -- >> Colson Whitehead: Yeah. The story was covered of the Dozier School, the real-life reform school that the story is based on. It'd been covered in Florida newspapers, not so much nationally. And then in the summer of 2014 they were excavating the closed school. And digging up the unmarked graveyard. They found a graveyard full of students' bodies. And some of them had died of natural causes. Some of them shotgun pellets in their chest. Some of them had blunt force trauma to their skulls. And so, there was a lot of journalism for me to draw upon. Ben Montgomery worked for the "Tampa Bay Times," covered the story for years. There are memoirs of former students. You know, men who'd been there in their 50s and 60s telling their stories of what happened to them. And then there are survivor websites where people, grown men now, contribute brief biographical sketches of their time at the school. And so for me, with this book, and Underground, I love using primary documents. With Underground it was slave narratives. And the WPA's interviews with former slaves. And they give me a language, a slang, nouns, that I can use to make my book realistic. And the case of "Nickel Boys" small details which might not get into newspapers but are part of the sort of oral history of the school. And for me, those are a great resource that sort of pull out the lore and the culture of the school and weave it into my fiction. >> Carla Hayden: Have you had a reaction with people saying, "Oh, this couldn't have happened"? >> Colson Whitehead: I don't think people are surprised, given the capacity for human evil. In travelling with the book I've met people who lived in the town outside the school. And some of the people said their parents used to scare them. If you're bad, we'll send you to Dozier. And then some people who lived nearby said they knew nothing about it. And so, it had been covered in local papers. But people sort of choose what they want to know about what's so close to them. >> Carla Hayden: Is it similar to several of the differences in remembrances in terms of concentration camps? You hear that they didn't know what was going on. >> Colson Whitehead: Yeah. You just look the other way. The school was in business for 111 years. It opened in 1900. And even in 1903, three years into being open, kids were being, as young as six, were put in solitary confinement. They were being chained up. So periodically there'd be investigations by the state. Or a reporter, news would get out. There'd be promises of reform. And then things would revert back to their terrible mean. They might stop doing corporal punishment. But that meant moving it to a utility shed on campus where not as many people could hear. And that cycle continued for 110 years. So, it takes more than just the abusers. It takes a whole establishment looking the other way. Civilians, people in government, doing nothing to protect these children. >> Carla Hayden: Well, [inaudible] and you would know in September at the National Book Festival we're going to have a big celebration and present the medal to you for the prize in fiction. Today we wanted to really continue a series that the library has on race and inequality in this country. And your books certainly speak to it. And I wondered how the last few months had been for you. >> Colson Whitehead: Well, yeah. I mean, like everybody, it's very exhausting just in terms of the pandemic. And I've been writing about institutional racism for the last five years. And slavery and slavery in one sort of permutation. And then under Jim Crow. And when I found out about the story of the Nickel Boys, it was 2014 and the summer of Ferguson. And we were having these police brutality incidents caught on tape. And no one is ever held accountable. And that's what made this story of Dozier stick with me, in that terrible summer. No one who worked at Dozier was ever held accountable. So, I'm always writing about American history and race. But I have been so involved with it in the last five or six years that to suddenly have a national conversation about it. To have another high profile incident. To have another, hopefully fruitful, conversation about all these things has been exhausting. But then also heartening in terms of how many people are turning out into the streets. And people have said, we can't take another video. We can't look away any longer. We have to do something. So, I feel like in my private office here, I'm working on this stuff and talking about this stuff to different audiences around the world. To schools and libraries. And so, it's weird to have my office explode. And also heartening that so many people are joining in on the conversation. >> Carla Hayden: And are your books resonating and people picking them up or rereading them in a different way? >> Colson Whitehead: Well, I think it's interesting. Because now "The Nickel Boys" is coming out in Europe. And people know in France and Spain, they know about segregation. That's what they know about Jim Crow. But they don't know so much about lynching culture. They don't know so much about the minor laws like bumptious contact. Bumptious contact in Florida meant that you had to get out of the way of a white person walking down the street if they are coming towards you. And if you didn't you could be fined. You could be put in jail. And so there are so many big deprivations, segregation. And then so many tiny laws invented just to persecute and perpetuate slavery in different form. And so, you know, so some people know a bit about Jim Crow. Not so much other things. A lot of people are surprised that Dozier was opened for 110 years and never heard about it. So the same thing that brought me to the story, the shock that no one else -- I hadn't heard about it, has made the story live in people who are encountering it for the first time. >> Carla Hayden: What about Underground Railroad, too. Because in terms of the history and really going back to some of the roots. >> Colson Whitehead: Yeah, I mean, again I think slavery in America is taught a little bit better than when I was a kid. But so many things were left out. So, part of my mission was to have a realistic plantation. You know, there's a fantastic element to the book. But before I got it wrong in moving things around, I wanted to get it right. So the plantation horrors are very brutal and very vivid. So I think people were -- if you haven't thought or considered how slavery worked in a long time, you could be surprised at how efficient and violent this system was. You had to keep millions of people in check. You had to have legislation and slave captors. A whole network to prop up the system. So I think some of the ways in which the book deals with slavery are revelations to readers, you know, some readers who haven't thought about it in a while. And for me doing the research, it was one thing to watch "Roots" when I was eight. Another thing to study history in college. But coming to the material in my 40's I understood in a different way what slavery meant. What it would mean to have your child beaten, sold off. To have your child see that happen to you. And so, I think periodically novels or books or books of non-fiction can reawaken the conversation we have about our history. And I'm glad that Underground has sort of entered into that. >> Carla Hayden: Now, as an author, and you're delving into this difficult material. Do you have to step away sometime? [Inaudible]. >> Colson Whitehead: If I felt it every day, I couldn't work efficiently. So if I was depressed or angry, I couldn't make decent art, hopefully, out of it. With "Underground Railroad" I did my own reckoning before I started. So, I was sort of depressed doing the research and realizing what I'd have to put my main character through to be realistic. Reckoning with the existential problem of, you know, I shouldn't be here. It's a miracle that this or that ancestor wasn't killed in the middle passage. Wasn't killed in this or that plantation. And they somehow had a kid who had a kid who survived Jim Crow, so that me and my siblings could be around. So I did that reckoning before I started writing Underground. And if I'd kept that rage and sadness with me every day, I couldn't have written the book. With "The Nickel Boys" I had that towards the end. The last six weeks I was just very tired of some of the more miserable parts. I had set my two characters on a course two years before. And as I approached the tragic ending, I felt for them, even though they were creations. I felt for the real life models. You know, the characters aren't based on any one person from real life. But I didn't want to mess up the story of Dozier. I wanted to be truthful to these -- the survivors' experiences. And so I was thinking about them a lot. And so, for the first time I started work sad. And I finished work sad. And I went back to work the next day. And I handed my book in July 4th. Had a nice barbeque. And then played video games for six weeks. I kind of just goofed off. >> Carla Hayden: You had to just let it go [inaudible]. >> Colson Whitehead: Yeah. Yeah. >> Carla Hayden: You had to. So, during this time, and I went back to "Sag Harbor," one of your earlier works. And it's about young African-American men in an interesting place. Not a typical setting that you might read about at times. And there was one passage that the father of the protagonist pretty made a hard point that the young man interpreted as giving him hurt in this world so he could be prepared. And I thought about some of the things that people have said about the conversations they're having with their young people in their lives. And I wondered, had you had that conversation? And then, what are you saying now to your young people? >> Colson Whitehead: Sure. I mean, yeah, "Sag Harbor" is about race and class. And it's about a kid growing up in the '80s. And his father is a first generation college and has had a very tough road to make this life for his kids. And he's trying to teach his son that things aren't as rosy as you might think. Those hard lessons. You know, in my life, I had parents who let us read anything, watch anything. And that meant from an early age I saw Richard Pryor and George Carlin, people who would mix in their social commentary with their humor. And the first time I heard about being policed while black was a Richard Pryor routine. And he's talking about being stopped by the police. He's in a car. And they say, "Let me see your license and registration." And Richard Pryor's like, "You know, you have to go slow. You have to go, 'I am reaching into my glove compart-'" because, you know, it could mean your end. So, I learned that very early. I wish that I didn't have to tell my kids, explain white supremacy to them. My son is six. But he wants to know what's happening in the news and what the confederate flag is and why people are upset. And why is it coming down? And why is it coming up? And, it's a longer conversation than you think you're going to get into. But, all these things are still present now, that you can't shield your children. And you have to arm them for the way the world is. And that means explaining at a very young age why people are very invested in this flag. And why it should come down. >> Carla Hayden: And that seems like that would be a challenging conversation with a young child who hasn't been indoctrinated to a lot of this. And just seems the inequity or the almost ridiculousness of some of it when you're trying to explain it. >> Colson Whitehead: Yes. Because it doesn't make sense to us. And when [inaudible] out loud it's way ridiculous. But you know, hopefully he can hang onto some of his innocence. And a hundred years from now that conversation will be in a very different form. In the same way that a hundred years ago, telling your kid about if you're African-American, telling your son or daughter how the world works was a very different conversation than I'm having now, too. >> Carla Hayden: Do you find hope in history? Dr. Lonnie Bunch at the Smithsonian, Secretary of the Smithsonian, talks about that so much. That even though the history might be difficult and painful, there is hope. >> Colson Whitehead: Well, I mean, I've written two books now. One about slavery and one about Jim Crow, where no one's punished. When slavery is ended, the slave masters just start a new day of running their farms and plantations and weren't brought to justice. And in "The Nickel Boys" I'm writing about guards and superintendents at this reform school who were never brought to justice. They mangled the lives of young boys for decades and decades. So, I've been working in the space of very little hope. But then you see the last few months and just how big the marches are. And how long-lived they are. And they're still going on. They're not getting as much coverage. But all over the country people are heading out into the streets in a way that we haven't seen in decades. And so, without hope you can't go on. And without people standing up, nothing gets done. So it has been heartening these last few weeks. >> Carla Hayden: Do you think there are things that you would recommend books and authors as an author? James Baldwin has been cited quite a bit recently. That you would add to that, possibly? >> Colson Whitehead: Yeah, that's a good question. In terms of hopeful literature [laughs]. >> Carla Hayden: Or not. It doesn't have to be hopeful. It might be things that would shed some light or give some insight or make people think. >> Colson Whitehead: Yeah, I mean, I think books that have stayed with me lately: Tracy K. Smith, "Life on Mars." Very, sort of beautiful collection of poems about inner space and outer space. So that's stayed with me. I'm looking forward to -- I just finished another manuscript. And so I have more time to read again. So, I'm really glad. And I'm looking forward to my big pile of books back there that I've been assembling. So N.K. Jemisin, "The City We Became." Science fiction about New York City. Two things I love, science fiction, New York City. And then Brit Bennett's second book, "The Vanishing Half" has just come out. And I'm glad people have really picked it up and embraced it. And I'm really -- I met her when her first book came out. And I'm old enough now that I meet people in their 20's and 30's and I'm like, "Ah, you young whippersnapper. You're just come [inaudible] -- just coming out with your first book." And yeah, and I'm really proud of the sort of younger generation of artists who are finding their way. And find their way in a very tough marketplace and reviewing environment. >> Carla Hayden: If you had some things, and people look to authors and poets, Tracy K. Smith a form of poet laureate, United States, and looked at poets and writers during these times, what would you like -- what would you tell the public? >> Colson Whitehead: I think -- I like the ecstatic Americans like Walt Whitman and Ginsberg. "The Spring" Campbell McGrath, poet out of Florida. Had a great poem about New York City. And it was -- it came out in the spring. It was a hard to be a New Yorker. So, those sort of nimble voices who embrace the great ragged American chorus I turn to for inspiration and guidance. And maybe Whitman a 150 years ago, or Campbell McGrath now. But people who talk about my home town in a way that make you proud to be there and give inspiration to those who have to rebuild. And in the coming months we will have to figure out how New York City's going to come back. And so those artists are very inspiring to me. >> Carla Hayden: And what would you say to people? Just hang in there? >> Colson Whitehead: Hang in there. Take care of [inaudible]. I mean, I guess mask it or casket, as the kids are saying on the internet. So, take care of yourself. Feel you're part of a community. And so, in protecting yourself, you're protecting other people. >> Carla Hayden: Good. Well, you mentioned feeling like a young person or not as young, but you probably know that you are the youngest recipient of the American Prize -- the Prize for American Fiction at the Library of Congress. And at your age you have won more awards than so many other authors. And we are all just excited about your work. And what work is to come. You mentioned a manuscript. So, I don't know if this is top secret or something like that. But we will be awaiting it, I'm sure. >> Colson Whitehead: Yeah, no, I mean, I gave it to my editor over the weekend. He emailed me last night saying that he loves it. So, there's no other nicer email to get than your editor saying, "Good job." So, probably next year, year and a half, it'll be out. But, again, I'm very honored to be recognized by the Library. You know, I guess I'm a little younger than the previous recipient. So I'm skewing the age a little bit. >> Carla Hayden: Oh, yes. >> Colson Whitehead: But, you know, in terms of lifetime achievement, sometimes you feel it's a whole lifetime writing the book. So, I have ten books, that's a few lifetimes. >> Carla Hayden: Well, you have a bright, bright future. And we are so honored to be able to give you this. And I appreciate you taking this time like this. So, thank you so much. >> Colson Whitehead: No, thanks for having me. I look forward to the fall. >> Carla Hayden: National Book Festival. It's virtual, too. Thanks so much, Colson. >> Colson Whitehead: All right.