Pulitzer-winning author Colson Whitehead is 2024 CCNY Langston Hughes Medalist

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead is this year’s City College of New York’s Langston Hughes Medal recipient. He’ll receive the Medal at CCNY's 45th annual Langston Hughes Festival on Feb. 1. 

The medal is awarded to highly distinguished writers from throughout the African American diaspora. It recognizes honorees for their impressive works of poetry, fiction, drama, autobiography and critical essays that help to celebrate the memory and tradition of Langston Hughes. Past award winners include: 

• James Baldwin;
• Gwendolyn Brooks;
• Toni Morrison;
• August Wilson;
• Maya Angelou; 
• Octavia Butler;
• Zadie Smith; 
• Michael Eric Dyson; 
• Rita Dove;  
• Jamaica Kincaid and
• Lynn Nottage. 

Whitehead won his first Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his novel “The Underground Railroad.”  A #1 New York Times bestseller, it also earned him the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Fiction. 

His second Pulitzer came two years later for “The Nickel Boys,” a novel inspired by the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida. It also scooped the Kirkus Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

His other notable books include:

• His first novel, “The Intuitionist,” a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award;
   
• “John Henry Days,” finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. It won the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; 
   
• “Apex Hides the Hurt,” PEN/Oakland Award winner;
   
• “Sag Harbor,” finalist PEN/Faulkner award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and
   
• “Harlem Shuffle” (2021), and “Crook Manifesto” (2023), the first two books in his Harlem Trilogy. 

Whitehead's reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in a number of publications, such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper's and Granta.

His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Dos Passos Prize, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

In 2018, New York State named him its New York State Author, and in 2020 the Library of Congress awarded him its Prize for American Fiction.

Click here to read more.

Click Here To RSVP

About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi (now Lightcast) puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. This year, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.