Colson Whitehead isn’t done with Ray Carney.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author plans to bring back the conflicted protagonist of his latest novel, Harlem Shuffle, he confirmed on Twitter.

Whitehead responded to a reader who tweeted his praise for the novel, writing, “What a fantastic book #Harlemshuffle is. A real page turner…Tinged with sadness that I won’t be reading any of Ray Carney’s schemes anymore.”

“Don’t be sad—he’ll be back in 2023!” Whitehead replied.

Harlem Shuffle, published last September by Doubleday, follows furniture salesman Carney in mid-20th-century New York, as he takes occasional jobs as a fence, selling pilfered merchandise on behalf of his shady cousin. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the novel, which was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, “As one of Whitehead’s characters might say of their creator, When you’re hot, you’re hot.”

In an interview last year with the New York Times, Whitehead said that writing the character of Carney was a relief to him after writing his two previous books, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, both of which tackled themes of violent racism.

“After the darkness of the last two books, the levity, Carney’s humble charm, is fulfilling a psychological need for me,” Whitehead said. “I could explore the world in a different way, that’s not tied to these terrible systems of capitalism and institutional racism.”

And in an interview with Sharp, published in October, Whitehead spilled some details about his next project.

“I’m writing a second volume of Carney stories,” he said. “We’re following him in the 1970s. Normally, I write a book and I’m done; I’m sick of it. But this is the first time that I’ve had a character and a world that I’m not finished with.”

Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.