Bestselling Author and Two-Time Pulitzer Prize-Winner Colson Whitehead to Deliver Keynote Address at UMass Amherst Commencement Ceremony May 18

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Colson Whitehead, celebrated novelist and one of just four writers to have received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, will deliver the keynote address at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Undergraduate Commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 18, starting at 10 a.m. at McGuirk Alumni Stadium. 

The 154^th UMass Amherst Undergraduate Commencement ceremony will confer degrees to approximately 6,800 undergraduate students at an anticipated gathering of more than 20,000 at the stadium. Whitehead will also be presented with an honorary degree from the university in celebration of his literary achievements.

Whitehead is the author of nine novels, the most recent of which is 2023’s “Crook Manifesto.” His 2016 novel, “The Underground Railroad,” was a No.1 New York Times bestseller, an Oprah’s Book Club selection and the winner of the 2016 National Book Award and 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His 2019 New York Times bestseller, “The Nickel Boys,” won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Whitehead, a graduate of Harvard College, was raised in Manhattan and currently lives in New York City. 

Whitehead’s debut novel, “The Intuitionist,” published in 1999, was a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. His follow-up, 2001’s “John Henry Days,” received the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. 

His other works include the novels “Apex Hides the Hurt,” “Sag Harbor,” “Zone One,” and 2021’s “Harlem Shuffle,” as well as the collection of essays, “The Colossus of New York,” and his 2014 memoir, “The Noble Hustle.” His reviews, essays and fiction have appeared in publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper’s and Granta.

Whitehead has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Dos Passos Prize, a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the 2020 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction and the National Humanities Medal in 2021. A former reviewer for The Village Voice, he was named New York’s 11^th State Author in 2018.

Whitehead has taught at the University of Houston, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, New York University, Princeton University and Wesleyan University, and has been a writer-in-residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond and the University of Wyoming.

About UMass Amherst Commencement

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Entrance to the Undergraduate Commencement ceremony is free and tickets are not required. Shuttle buses will transport guests from parking lots to the stadium. Guests should plan to arrive on campus by 8 a.m. to ensure ample time to reach campus, park and arrive at the stadium via a shuttle bus or by walking. Services are available for guests with limited mobility and other disabilities.

Later in the day on Saturday and throughout Sunday, Senior Recognition Ceremonies will be held across campus by schools, colleges and other university programs, where undergraduates can have their names called and walk across a stage to be individually recognized.

Graduate Commencement for all doctoral, master’s and education specialist degree candidates is scheduled for Friday, May 17, at 10 a.m., and will also be held at McGuirk Stadium. The ceremony will be immediately followed by the doctoral hooding.

Complete details for all ceremonies are available on the Commencement website.