Born in New York in 1969, Colson Whitehead is one of the very few American writers to have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice, for his two previous novels “Underground Railroad” and “Nickel Boys”. Translated in more than thirty countries, Colson Whitehead has embarked on a new trilogy set in the 1960s in New York, the first volume of which, “Harlem Shuffle”, has just been translated by Charles Recoursé, published by Albin Michel.
“Small scams, scrambles and class struggle… The irresistible fresco of 1960s Harlem.
Loving husband, caring family man and son of a local mob henchman, Ray Carney, a New York furniture and appliance salesman on 125th Street, “isn’t a thug, just a little trickster”. Until his cousin offers him to rob the famous Theresa Hotel, nicknamed the Waldorf of Harlem…
Chink Montague, skilled in handling the straight razor, Pepper, veteran of the Second World War, Miami Joe, gangster all dressed in purple, and other crooked cops or arsonist pornographers make up the landscape of this fierce and funny novel. But its main character is Harlem, a center of the struggle for civil rights, where the death of a black teenager, shot dead by a white policeman, triggered riots in 1964 foreshadowing those which took place at the death of George Floyd.
With Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead reinvents himself once again by diverting the codes of the noir novel. (Presentation of Albin Michel editions)