The Nickel Boys

Elwood Curtis, a sixteen-year-old Afro-American teenager, studies well and after school works part-time in a store, preparing to apply to college: he dreams of becoming a teacher. But because of a ridiculous accident, he is accused of a crime he didn’t commit and sentenced to time in a correctional facility. The Nickel Academy turns out to be a real hell, where the inmates are subjected to physical and emotional abuse and exploitation. Those who resist are taken “to the back lots,” from where they never return. Elwood survives this hell thanks to his friendship with Turner, who is his complete opposite. Elwood is naive and believes in the triumph of justice; Turner is convinced that the world has been, is, and always will be cruel and unfair. The desperate attempt by friends to change the order at the “Nickel” ends in tragedy. The novel is based on real events and “confirms Colson Whitehead’s leading position in contemporary American literature” (Time magazine). In 2020 it won the Pulitzer Prize and the Orwell Prize.