With the same intellectual incisiveness and supple, stylish prose he brought to his classic novel Invisible Man, Ellison examines his antecedents and in so doing, illuminates the literature, music, and culture of both black and white America. His range is virtuosic, encompassing Mark Twain and Richard Wright, Mahalia Jackson and Charlie Parker, The Birth of a Nation and the Dante-esque landscape of Harlem. Throughout, he gives us what amounts to an episodic autobiography that traces his formation as a writer as well as the genesis of Invisible Man.
"A book that will be remembered...A body of cogent and subtle commentary on the questions that focus on race. It is, in its allusive way, the autobiography of a strong and sensitive man, who happens to be a gifted artist."--Robert Penn Warren
Contents
Part 1. The Seer and the Seen That Same Pain, That Same Pleasure: An Interview 20th Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke Stephen Crane and the Mainstream of American Fiction Richard Wright's Blues Beating That Boy Brave Words for a Startling Occasion The World and the Jug Hidden Name and Complex Fate The Art of Fiction: An Interview
Part 2. Sound and the Mainstream Living with Music The Golden Age, Time Past As the Spirit Moves Mahalia On Bird, Bird-Watching, and Jazz The Charlie Christian Story Remembering Jimmy Blues People
Part 3. The Shadow and the Act Some Questions and Some Answers The Shadow and the Act The Way It Is Harlem is Nowhere An American Dilemma: A Review
Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) was born in Oklahoma and trained as a musician at Tuskegee Institute from 1933 to 1936, at which time a visit to New York and a meeting with Richard Wright led to his first attempts at fiction, and eventually winning the National Book Award for Invisible Man. Appointed to the Academy of American Arts and Letters in 1964, Ellison taught at several institutions, including Bard College, the University of Chicago, and New York University, where he was Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities.
View titles by Ralph Ellison
With the same intellectual incisiveness and supple, stylish prose he brought to his classic novel Invisible Man, Ellison examines his antecedents and in so doing, illuminates the literature, music, and culture of both black and white America. His range is virtuosic, encompassing Mark Twain and Richard Wright, Mahalia Jackson and Charlie Parker, The Birth of a Nation and the Dante-esque landscape of Harlem. Throughout, he gives us what amounts to an episodic autobiography that traces his formation as a writer as well as the genesis of Invisible Man.
"A book that will be remembered...A body of cogent and subtle commentary on the questions that focus on race. It is, in its allusive way, the autobiography of a strong and sensitive man, who happens to be a gifted artist."--Robert Penn Warren
Contents
Part 1. The Seer and the Seen That Same Pain, That Same Pleasure: An Interview 20th Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke Stephen Crane and the Mainstream of American Fiction Richard Wright's Blues Beating That Boy Brave Words for a Startling Occasion The World and the Jug Hidden Name and Complex Fate The Art of Fiction: An Interview
Part 2. Sound and the Mainstream Living with Music The Golden Age, Time Past As the Spirit Moves Mahalia On Bird, Bird-Watching, and Jazz The Charlie Christian Story Remembering Jimmy Blues People
Part 3. The Shadow and the Act Some Questions and Some Answers The Shadow and the Act The Way It Is Harlem is Nowhere An American Dilemma: A Review
Author
Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) was born in Oklahoma and trained as a musician at Tuskegee Institute from 1933 to 1936, at which time a visit to New York and a meeting with Richard Wright led to his first attempts at fiction, and eventually winning the National Book Award for Invisible Man. Appointed to the Academy of American Arts and Letters in 1964, Ellison taught at several institutions, including Bard College, the University of Chicago, and New York University, where he was Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities.
View titles by Ralph Ellison