Ralph Ellison

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About Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison (1914-94) 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. Invisible Man won the National Book Award. 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.

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Titles By Ralph Ellison

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Invisible Man Sep 2, 2019

by Ralph Ellison

$2.99

First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

Juneteenth: A Novel (Vintage International) Jun 1, 2011

by Ralph Ellison, Charles Johnson

$11.99

From the author of bestselling Invisible Man—the classic novel of African-American experience—this long-awaited second novel tells an evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century. Brilliantly crafted, moving, and wise, Juneteenth is the work of an American master.

"Tell me what happened while there's still time," demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself. Bliss's history encompasses the joys of young southern boyhood; bucolic days as a filmmaker, lovemaking in a field in the Oklahoma sun. And behind it all lies a mystery: how did this chosen child become the man who would deny everything to achieve his goals?

Here is the master of American vernacular at the height of his powers, evoking the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech.

"An extraordinary book, a work of staggering virtuosity. With its publication, a giant world of literature has just grown twice as tall." —Newsday

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Preloaded Digital Audio Player

Invisible Man : The Man Who Made Black America Visible Jan 21, 2021

by Ralph Ellison

$2.99

First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century.

Other Formats: Kindle

The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison: Revised and Updated (Modern Library Classics) Jun 1, 2011

by Ralph Ellison, John F. Callahan, Saul Bellow

$13.99

Compiled, edited, and newly revised by Ralph Ellison’s literary executor, John F. Callahan, this Modern Library Paperback Classic includes posthumously discovered reviews, criticism, and interviews, as well as the essay collections Shadow and Act (1964), hailed by Robert Penn Warren as “a body of cogent and subtle commentary on the questions that focus on race,” and Going to the Territory (1986), an exploration of literature and folklore, jazz and culture, and the nature and quality of lives that black Americans lead. “Ralph Ellison,” wrote Stanley Crouch, “reached across race, religion, class and sex to make us all Americans.”

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

Flying Home: and Other Stories (Vintage International) Jun 1, 2011

by Ralph Ellison

$9.99

These 13 stories by the author of The Invisible Man "approach the elegance of Chekhov" (Washington Post) and provide "early explorations of (Ellison's) lifelong fascination with the 'complex fate' and 'beautiful absurdity' of American identity" (John Callahan). First serial to The New Yorker. NPR sponsorship.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

Three Days Before the Shooting . . . (Modern Library) Jan 20, 2010

by Ralph Ellison, John F. Callahan, Adam Bradley

$10.99

From the author of bestselling Invisible Man—the classic novel of African-American experience—this long-awaited second novel tells an evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century. Brilliantly crafted, moving, and wise, Juneteenth is the work of an American master.

"Tell me what happened while there's still time," demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself. Bliss's history encompasses the joys of young southern boyhood; bucolic days as a filmmaker, lovemaking in a field in the Oklahoma sun. And behind it all lies a mystery: how did this chosen child become the man who would deny everything to achieve his goals?

Here is the master of American vernacular at the height of his powers, evoking the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech.

"An extraordinary book, a work of staggering virtuosity. With its publication, a giant world of literature has just grown twice as tall." —Newsday

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

Shadow and Act (Vintage International) Jun 1, 2011

by Ralph Ellison

$11.99

With the same intellectual incisiveness and supple, stylish prose he brought to his classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph 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−"the scene and symbol of the Negro's perpetual alienation in the land of his birth." 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.
On every page, Ellison reveals his idiosyncratic and often contrarian brilliance, his insistence on refuting both black and white stereotypes of what an African American writer should say or be. The result is a book that continues to instruct, delight, and occasionally outrage readers thirty years after it was first published.

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback

The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison Dec 3, 2019

by Ralph Ellison, John F. Callahan, Marc C. Conner

$14.99

A radiant collection of letters from the renowned author of Invisible Man that trace the life and mind of a giant of American literature, with insights into the riddle of identity, the writer’s craft, and the story of a changing nation over six decades

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

These extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph Ellison and provide a remarkable window into the great writer’s life and work, his friendships, rivalries, anxieties, and all the questions about identity, art, and the American soul that bedeviled and inspired him until his death. They include early notes to his mother, written as an impoverished college student; lively exchanges with the most distinguished American writers and thinkers of his time, from Romare Bearden to Saul Bellow; and letters to friends and family from his hometown of Oklahoma City, whose influence would always be paramount.

These letters are beautifully rendered first-person accounts of Ellison’s life and work and his observations of a changing world, showing his metamorphosis from a wide-eyed student into a towering public intellectual who confronted and articulated America’s complexities.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover

Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray Apr 19, 2010

by Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, John Callahan

$11.99

This absorbing collection of letters spans a decade in the lifelong friendship of two remarkable writers who engaged the subjects of literature, race, and identity with deep clarity and passion.

The correspondence begins in 1950 when Ellison is living in New York City, hard at work on his enduring masterpiece, Invisible Man, and Murray is a professor at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Mirroring a jam session in which two jazz musicians "trade twelves"—each improvising twelve bars of music around the same musical idea-their lively dialog centers upon their respective writing, the jazz they both love so well, on travel, family, the work literary contemporaries (including Richard Wright, James Baldwin, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway) and the challenge of racial inclusiveness that they wish to pose to America through their craft. Infused with warmth, humor, and great erudition, Trading Twelves offers a glimpse into literary history in the making—and into a powerful and enduring friendship.

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

Going to the Territory (Vintage International) Jun 1, 2011

by Ralph Ellison

$12.99

The work of one of the most formidable figures in American intellectual life."

-- Washington Post Book World

The seventeen essays collected in this volume prove that Ralph Ellison was not only one of America's most dazzlingly innovative novelists but perhaps also our most perceptive and iconoclastic commentator on matters of literature, culture, and race. In Going to the Territory, Ellison provides us with dramatically fresh readings of William Faulkner and Richard Wright, along with new perspectives on the music of Duke Ellington and the art of Romare Bearden. He analyzes the subversive quality of black laughter, the mythic underpinnings of his masterpiece Invisible Man, and the extent to which America's national identity rests on the contributions of African Americans. Erudite, humane, and resounding with humor and common sense, the result is essential Ellison.

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

Uomo invisibile (Italian Edition) Feb 25, 2021

by Ralph Ellison

$16.99

Pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1952 e vincitore del National Book Award l’anno successivo, Uomo invisibile è uno dei romanzi che hanno cambiato la letteratura statunitense. Il protagonista di questa storia ambientata nell’America bianca degli anni Quaranta non ha nome né cognome, nessuno si accorge di lui, la sua esistenza viene negata, quello che conta è solo il colore della sua pelle e la sua appartenenza a una “razza”. Ellison racconta il passaggio dall’idealismo alla rabbia, il disincanto di un giovane umiliato sia nel Sud razzista che ad Harlem, e insieme il turbamento che deriva dalla violenza, dall’impossibilità di affermarsi, dall’essere demonizzato dai razzisti e idolatrato come un trofeo dai comunisti che in quegli anni iniziano ad alzare la voce. Con uno stile letterario, altamente simbolico, tra Melville e Dostoevskij, Uomo invisibile – qui proposto in una nuova traduzione a cura di Francesco Pacifico – è la prima testimonianza del dramma irrisolto degli afroamericani, è la fotografia delle scintille che hanno incendiato l’America di Donald Trump. Uno dei romanzi più audaci e abbaglianti del Novecento.

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