Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man, Ellison's blistering and impassioned first novel, won the prestigious American National Book Award. It tells the extraordinary story of a man who is invisible "simply because people refuse to see me". His powerfully depicted adventures—from a terrifying Harlem race riot to his expulsion from a Southern college—extend far beyond the story of one man. The lives of countless...

New Penguin Essentials edition of this blistering, impassioned novel of African-American lives in 1940s America. 'I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.' Defeated and embittered by a country which treats him as a non-being, the invisible man retreats into an underground cell, where he smokes, drinks, listens to jazz, and recounts his search for identity in...

A jazz novel, a sermon and a song of praise to the richness of African-American experience. From Ralph Ellison, author of the classic novel, Invisible Man - the long-awaited follow-up. Here is the master of American vernacular - the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech - at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of...