Ralph Ellison is justly celebrated for his epochal novel
Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and has
become a classic of American literature. But Ellison’s strange
inability to finish a second novel, despite his dogged efforts and
soaring prestige, made him a supremely enigmatic figure. Arnold
Rampersad skillfully tells the story of a writer whose thunderous
novel and astute, courageous essays on race, literature, and
culture assure him of a permanent place in our literary
heritage.
Starting with Ellison’s hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma and
his ordeal as a student in Alabama, Rampersad documents his
improbable, painstaking rise in New York to a commanding place on
the literary scene. With scorching honesty but also fair and
compassionate, Rampersad lays bare his subject’s troubled
psychology and its impact on his art and on the people about
him.This book is both the definitive biography of Ellison and a
stellar model of literary biography.