Born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, grew up reading Stephen King and Marvel Comics, a Harvard graduate, Whitehead began his writing career with a column on books, television and music for the weekly “The Village Voice”. In 1999 his first novel, The Intuitionist was released, based on the world of elevator inspectors, which was received enthusiastically by critics, and added to the African American College Literature Program. Two years later surpassing this debut success was John Henry Days, a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award for narrative. Unanimously proclaimed as the best American novel of the year, amongst the many accolades received was the Young Lions Fiction Award of the New York Public Library. His latest novel is Sag Harbor.