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.
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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.