The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

The Nickel Boys is a 2019 novel by American novelist Colson Whitehead. It is based on the historic Dozier School, a reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years and was revealed as highly abusive. A university investigation found numerous unmarked graves for unrecorded deaths and a history into the late 20th century of emotional and physical abuse of students.
TIME named it one of the best books of the decade.[4] The Nickel Boys won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[5] Judges of the prize called the novel "a spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption."[6] It is Whitehead's second win, following The Underground Railroad in 2017, making him the fourth writer in history to have won the prize for fiction twice.[7] The novel was adapted into the film Nickel Boys (2024), directed and co-written by RaMell Ross.