Book Review: The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Rating: 5/5

Reading the blurb of this book is not enough. When you dive into it, you realise the magnitude of things it talks about. Honestly, I had never read anything about slavery in the 19th century in such detail. We were taught about it in school I suppose, but it was not relevant. So, reading this book made me gasp with horrors. And, it’s not even fictionalising the events, such horrors indeed happened with real people in real life and must have been even more grotesque. Seeing as the world moving forward at such a pace and whole “modernity” has kicked in, you would not imagine that a country like America or even other developed countries would have such dreadful mentality and painful past. In India, a similar past that we had was related to untouchability and this book reminded me of Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand. It was painful to read Untouchable, and it was as much to read this one. A human being is a human being, I am not sure when and where colour or caste came to create the divide. It reminds me of what our prophet (peace be upon him) told us in his last sermon, “All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black, nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.”, It’s a great lesson to learn from and implement in our life, and if one does that no such feeling of difference would ever crop up.

Needless to say, after reading this book, I have tried to get more information on slavery in the 19th century and the facts are no less awful than the fictitious things mentioned in the book. It’s important to be aware of such past events, so that we acknowledge it and then move forward by not repeating such mistakes.

It’s a nightmare-inducing book for sure, but I recommend it 100% to everyone to read once. Not as a fiction, but as a means to learn and educate yourself.