AMHERST — An author who has twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, earning that recognition and a National Book Award for 2016’s “The Underground Railroad,” will deliver the main address at the 154th undergraduate commencement at the University of Massachusetts later this month.

Colson Whitehead, a New York City-based novelist and Manhattan native, will speak at the May 18 ceremony, when degrees will be awarded to almost 6,800 undergraduates and about 20,000 spectators are expected at McGuirk Alumni Stadium. The event, being held on a Saturday for the first time since 2010, begins at 10 a.m.

During the commencement, Whitehead, a Harvard College graduate, will be presented with an honorary degree from the university in celebration of his literary achievements, including the 2023 “Crook Manifesto.”

“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.

The commencement is free and open to the public, with shuttle buses to transport guests from parking lots to the stadium. Guests should arrive on campus by 8 a.m. to ensure they will be at the ceremony on time, with services available for guests with limited mobility and other disabilities.

Later in the day on Saturday and throughout Sunday, May 19, 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 May 17 at 10 a.m., also to be held at the stadium. The ceremony will be immediately followed by the doctoral hooding.

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 11th 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.