Colson Whitehead had to wait to write 'Underground Railroad'

CHICAGO - Colson Whitehead first had the idea for "The Underground Railroad," his novel about slavery that melds magic realism with the brutal realities of that institution, decades ago.

And while he says he was "self-satisfied" as a young man, he also knew enough to know that he shouldn't try writing it then, as his second novel. "I was 30. I was not a good enough writer to pull it off," he told some 900 people Saturday who came to hear him talk and see him accept the Chicago Tribune Heartland Literary Prize for fiction for the 2016