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Invisible Man
Penguin Classics
Paperback
: 02 Aug 2001
£9.99
Synopsis
Ralph Ellison's blistering and impassioned first novel, winner of the prestigious National Book Award, tells the extraordinary story of a man invisible 'simply because people refuse to see me.' Published in 1952 when American society was on the cusp of immense change, the powerfully depicted adventures of Ellison's invisible man - from his expulsion from a Southern college to a terrifying Harlem race riot - go far beyond the story of one individual. As John Callahan says, 'In an extrarordinary imaginative leap, he hit upon the single word for the different yet shared condition of African Americans, Americans, and, for that matter, the human individual in the 20th century, and beyond'.
This edition includes Ralph Ellison's introduction to the thirtieth anniversary edition of Invisible Man, a fascinating account of the novel's seven year gestation.
Reviews
» Submit a reviewCritic Review:
'One of the most important American novels of the twentieth century’ Times
‘One of the twentieth century’s most influential novels’ Daily Telegraph
‘A brilliant individual victory … proving that a truly heroic quality can exist among our contemporaries’ Saul Bellow, Commentary
‘[An] American classic … on of the most original voices of Black America’ Times
‘Those of us who are willing to be taught (and who needed to be) have been made by Invisible Man less stupid than we were about Negro lives’ Philip Roth
‘The creator of the definitive African-American fiction’ Independent
‘[It] brought African-American experiences vividly into the literary mainstream and spurred a renaissance that continues to this day’ Time
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