Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) is a masterpiece of American literature, exploring themes related to identity, nationalism, and individualism within a pervasively unjust society. Ralph Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, won the National Book Award for Invisible Man in 1953. Ellison grew up in Gary Indiana, and was admitted to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, founded by Booker T. Washington. Ellison studied music and spent his free time reading literature; notedly influenced by T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein. Ellison moved to New York City in 1936, and lodged at the YMCA on 135th Street in Harlem. Through a connection with Langston Hughes, Ellison was introduced to Harlem's literary establishment, predominantly with Marxist sympathies. The narrator of Invisible Man is an unnamed black man, who begins by describing his living conditions in an underground room powered by stolen electricity. The work is complex and challenging and we'll split our discussion into two meetings to provide time for careful reading and rich discussion.
Manhattan, New York, NY