Trading twelves

CorrespondenceAmerican NovelistsCriticsIntellectual lifeEllison, ralph, 1914-1994

4.0

Open Library

About this book

"When two jazz musicians trade twelves with each other in a jam session, one musician begins by riffing off twelve bars of music, the other musician throws the twelve bars back through his instrument, the first answers, and so, back and forth, in an ecstatic exchange of ideas and emotions. So it is with these letters, joyful music created by the exchanges between two dear friends."--Jacket.

Themes & subjects

CorrespondenceAmerican NovelistsCriticsIntellectual lifeEllison, ralph, 1914-1994Authors, correspondence

Characters & people

Setting

United States20th century

About the author

Ralph Ellison

1 March 1914 – 16 April 1994

Ralph Waldo Ellison was a novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). Research by Lawrence Jackson, one of Ellison's biographers, has established that he was born a year earlier than had been previously thought.