Shadow and act
African Americans in literatureAfrican American authorsAmerican literatureIntellectual lifeHistory and criticism
3.0
Open LibraryAbout this book
"With the same intellectual incisiveness and supple, stylish prose he brought to his classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison examines his antecedents and in so doing illuminates the literature, music, and culture of both black and white America. His range is virtuosic, encompassing Mark Twain and Richard Wright, Mahalia Jackson and Charlie Parker, The Birth of a Nation and the Dante-esque landscape of Harlem—“the scene and symbol of the Negro’s perpetual alienation in the land of his birth.” Throughout, he gives us what amounts to an episodic autobiography that traces his formation as a writer as well as the genesis of Invisible Man. On every page, Ellison reveals his idiosyncratic and often contrarian brilliance, his insistence on refuting both black and white stereotypes of what an African American writer should say or be. The result is a book that continues to instruct, delight, and occasionally outrage readers."--Back cover.
Themes & subjects
African Americans in literatureAfrican American authorsAmerican literatureIntellectual lifeHistory and criticismAfrican Americans
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.
Reviews
No reviews yet — be the first to write one from the Log screen.
Quotes
No quotes yet.
