About the author
Ralph Ellison was an American novelist, critic, and scholar. Invisible Man received the National Book Award and became his defining account of race, identity, ideology, and the violence of being seen only as another person's symbol.
Every institution he passes through wants him as a symbol rather than a person: the college, the company, the party, the street. Ellison stages this as a series of set pieces — the battle royal, the Liberty Paints hospital, the Harlem riot — each one surreal, furious, and funny in the same breath.
Where to start
Start with Invisible Man. A young Black man moves from a Southern college to Harlem and discovers he is invisible to everyone who uses him.
