This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Dave Davies.
In 2019, Colson Whitehead landed on the COVID of Time magazine next to a caption that called him America's storyteller.
He's earned that honor over the course of nine novels that have ranged from wry speculative fiction to zombie apocalypse to sobering historical fiction, all of them in various ways considering the topic of race in America.
His 2016 novel the Underground Railroad was adapted into an Amazon TV series directed by Barry Jenkins, who directed moonlight and if Beale street could talk.
Whitehead's 2019 novel the Nickel Boys has been adapted into a film of the same name, now in theaters.
It's based on the true story of the now closed Dozier School for Boys in Florida, where former students have reported being brutally beaten or sexually abused.
The central character of Whitehead's book is Elwood, a hard working, college bound African American high school student who believes in the promise of the civil rights movement.
Here's a clip from the film directed by Romel Ross.
Elwood, played by Ethan Harisi, is speaking to Turner, a fellow schoolmate played by Brandon Wilson.
Elwood has just been beaten by the school staff after he intervened to help a student being attacked by a bully.
If everybody looks the other way, then everybody's in on it.
If I look the other way, I'm as implicated as the rest.
It's not how it's supposed to be.
Don't nobody care about supposed to.
The fix has always been in game's rigged.
Colson Whitehead, welcome back to FRESH air.
It's good to have you.
And the book is remarkable.
I thought we would begin with a reading.