Ben H. Winters Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

Ben H. Winters discusses his novel Underground Airlines set in a contemporary version of the USA in which the Civil War never happened and slavery is still legal in some parts of the country

Ben H. Winters is white, and the narrator of his new novel, Underground Airlines, is not. In fact, the narrator, Victor, is African-American, an ex-slave in a contemporary version of the United States with a speculative-fiction twist: the Civil War never happened, meaning that slavery is still legal (in portions of the country, anyway). Victor is a bounty hunter tasked with finding runaway slaves, which puts him in an understandably awkward (if that understatement will do here) position: he uses his race to ingratiate himself into the lives of other African-Americans whom he will eventually betray. This leads the character—and the novel—toward much soul-searching about what it means to be black in America. And once again, Ben H. Winters is white.

How do you feel about this basic fact of Underground Airlines? I ask, in part, because this issue arose in a conversation I recently had with a white bookseller who felt uncomfortable recommending the book in a store newsletter because of the author's—and the bookseller's own—race. This is a version of an old question that haunts writers: how do you gain the authority to tell the story you're telling? And, in this particular case: can a white author ...