Author
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison's only novel published in his lifetime follows an unnamed young Black narrator from a Southern college to Harlem and finally underground, where he tells his story from a hidden cellar blazing with light. Along the way, institutions that claim to help him, from a respectable Black college to a political organization called the Brotherhood, each ask him to play a part rather than be a person. Issued in 1952, it is one of the award winning books of its decade, taking the 1953 National Book Award for Fiction. Part social satire, part surreal nightmare, part jazz-inflected confession, it remains one of the classic novels to read for anyone curious about American race, identity, and the price of being seen only as a symbol.